Count to Ten
by Caseyrocksmore
Summary: When Reid finds a young woman on the beach, the team investigates a series of murders at home in Quantico. Meanwhile Reid finds himself falling in love with one of the killer's victims. Rating might change later. Eventual Reid/OC Please Review!
1. High Tide

_This story is told from different character's points of view, starting with my OC, Leah Banks'. It will eventually turn out of to be Reid/OC (the OC being Leah), but at the moment it starts as more of a case-fiction. I haven't fully finished thinking out the plot, so PLEASE review and give me suggestions. Updates might be a little slow, because I have other on-going fictions, but I'll try to be as punctual with update as I can. Also, the title might change if I can think of a better one._

_-Casey_

**Count to Ten**

_Leah's Point of View_

The first thing I became aware of was the water lapping at my legs. The tide tugged at them, trying to pull me into the icy depths of the ocean. The rational part of my mind, the part that was still sane at the point, was telling me I had washed ashore at high tide, and that was why it wasn't succeeding. It was low tide. How long had I been here?

Slowly, my senses came back. The first thing that returned was the pain. It was a searing, white-hot pain in my abdomen. The next thing that I felt was the cold. The water was icy, numbing my lower extremities, and as a soft breeze kissed my exposed skin it left a trail of goose-bumps over my body. The last and final thing I noticed was that I was nearly naked— wearing only a pair of black-lace panties I vaguely remembered but knew weren't mine.

But God, the _pain_— it was awful. My hand, attached to an arm that felt heavier than lead, slowly moved to my stomach to touch it. It was hot, sticky from the blood. My cold fingers probed the wounds, mentally counting. _One, two, three, four, five_... five holes cut deep into my midsection. Five stab wounds, each bleeding slower because of the cold, each slowly killing me.

Again, the rational part of my mind began to scream at me. What was I doing?! I needed help. I needed to move before I bled to death. I tried to draw my knees up to stand, but the pain was overwhelming; I couldn't do it. My only choice was to crawl, so I rolled onto my hands and knees with a burst of my last strength. Opening my eyes then, I was surprised at how bright it was; the sand reflected the orange sun of early-morning to me. I thought it had been night. I must have been passed out longer than I thought.

I tried to be cautious of my wounds, keep them out of the sand. I didn't want to get an infection if I lived through all this, now did I? Slowly, methodically, I placed one hand and one knee in front of the other, dragging my exhausted body in the opposite direction of the water. I had to find people, if I was going to survive.

I was aware of my slow pace, brutally so. The pain in my abdomen seemed to increase with every move I made; my breaths were shallow and uneven. The sand clung to my blood-covered hands and knees, and I could feel that the blood-flow to my wounds was increasing as my body heated up, too. I was only killing myself faster, doing this. What were the odds that I'd find somebody at this hour? _Whatever this hour is_, I thought, since I didn't know the actually time.

My hand hit sandy pavement— the sidewalk by the beach. I collapsed beside it, falling onto my stomach. So all that protecting of my cuts was for nothing; they were filled with sand anyway. I tried to drag myself up again, keep moving— but it was impossible. I couldn't do it.

Tears welled in my tired eyes. I fought to keep them open. All I wanted was to sleep. I was so tired. For the third time, my rational brain told me something. _If you fall asleep now, you won't wake up again_, it said. It was right. I had to stay awake.

I was so miserable, it was painful. I was dead, with no one to miss me. I had no family, no boyfriend, and few friends. I should have been more social in my short life. I should have been more, done more. It wasn't _fair_.

A soft thudding made me pause. My ear was pressed to the rough, sandy concrete; footsteps? I lifted my head half an inch from the ground. There, a jogger! He was running in my direction, too! Tall and thin, he had dark hair and was wearing a white tee and gray track pants... it is funny the things you remember. He was listening to music, an iPod in his hand and ear buds in his ears. His head bobbed up and down, and his eyes were half-closed; he hadn't seen me.

My heart fell. My mouth was too dry to call to him. He might run right by me and never know he could have saved my life. "Help," I mouthed, but no sound came out. He kept jogging, eyes off to the left of him. And, of course, I was to his right.

He was so close his feet caused to ground to shudder. It was strange, that I felt that, because the guy looked light enough for a strong wind to blow him over. He was so close, but looked so far away. I reached out with the last strength I had, flinging my hand in his direction. To my amazement, and, presumably his, my hand made contact; I grabbed his ankle with my blood- and sand-covered hand and held on.

* * *

_Spencer's Point of View_

Morgan was right; jogging did help clear a busy head. It was early, around five AM, but I hadn't been able to sleep anyway. We'd just had a terrible case in Atlanta, Georgia... a serial killer who murdered seven fourteen-year-old girls before we stopped him. It was horrible because he'd keep them for weeks; up to four before killing them. Torture was obvious, both sexual and beatings. My stomach squeezed when I saw the pictures; I wanted to run from the room and vomit. I hadn't been very objective on the case, but we just _had_ to find that sick bastard. And we did, thank God. But not fast enough; he'd killed his seventh just before we arrived.

Frank Sinatra's version "Stardust" softly accompanied me as I jogged on the path not far from the beach; close enough that the sand leaked onto the concrete and crunched beneath my sneakers as they touched the ground. I kept my stepping even to the beat, counting in my head, _one two three, one two three_, with the music.

I sighed, enjoying the cold, crisp morning air. It helped erase the memories of that last case. It wasn't often that Morgan was right when it came to things to do with anything over than women, so I stowed away a mental note to tell him that he was right about this. Jogging felt _good_.

I was so calmed, so unfocussed that as I fell, I momentarily didn't know how that was possible. Then I felt the cold grip on my ankle. I put my hands out, dropping my iPod, to halt my fall and protect my face. As soon as I was steady I got up on my hands and knees and looked for what I had tripped over, presumably a plant or some garbage, a plastic bag, perhaps. What I saw was much, much worse.

The blood— there was so much of it. I could see a trail of it over the sand, heading toward the ocean. The girl, her green eyes unfocussed, clutching at my ankle like a life-line, and maybe it was, for her. Her hair was dark and wet and tangled. It stuck to her forehead and slung to her thin cheeks. She was naked, at first glance; but no, she was wearing dark underwear or a bikini bottom.

I crawled to her, forgetting about the iPod as the ear buds fell out of my ears. I gathered his up in my arms, pulling her into my lap; she was so cold. Her lips parted, as if she was trying to say something, but she didn't; she let go of my ankle and grasped at my shirt, covering it with sand and blood. One of my hands went to my pocket and grabbed my cellular phone, pulling it out and dialling 9-1-1. The other put pressure on the lacerations to her midriff, as though trying to hold the blood inside.

"_9-1-1, what is your emergency?_" a female voice asked me.

"I'm by the corner of Fourth and Hawthorn, on the beach path. A young woman has been stabbed—" My voice cracked. "There's so much blood..."

"_Sir, stay where you are, an ambulance is on the way._" I nodded numbly, not taking my eyes off hers. She was so scared, and she looked so tired...

"_Is she conscious?_"

"Her eyes are open, but she isn't saying anything..."

"_Try and get her to talk, tell her help is coming._"

"Help is coming," I said, still staring into her emerald-coloured eyes. "Can you talk? Are you breathing efficiently? What is your name?" I put the phone down beside me and cradled her in my arms, still trying to hold the blood inside her and it leaked through my fingers. I never knew a human could have so much blood.

"Leah," she breathed. Her voice was soft and velvety, even through the obvious pain and dryness of her throat. Tears spilled over my cheeks as I held onto her, willing her to stay alive. I was used to people dying, of course; but usually it had already happened by the time I got there. This was so completely new to me, trying to save a life.

I heard the sirens in the distance. It was taking them long enough! "Leah, just stay awake for me, please. Please, Leah, just stay awake," I murmured as I saw her eyelids droop. She looked so tired, but she was fighting it.

The next few minutes passed in a blur of sound and feelings. Leah being pulled from my arms by an EMT and being loaded up into an ambulance. Another asking me what happened. My monotone answers as I watched them take her away, driving off with lights flashing. Standing in the light of an early morning, covered in Leah's blood. I didn't know her, but I had saved her. As long as she didn't die on her way to the hospital, they could help her. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I had saved someone's life!


	2. Thoughts

**"_There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it._"  
-George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)**

_Spencer's Point of View_

"The fifth victim of a serial killer right here in Quantico washed ashore early this morning," Rossi explained, pinning up pictures of four dead women to the board. "She's alive, but in critical condition."

"They waited until the fifth to call us in?" Emily asked, sounding angry more than anything. "And it's in our own district, too! Cops are stupid." I rolled my eyes. "Why is this one alive?"

Rossi looked pointedly at me. I was uncomfortable about it, now. Of course, I had been the one to tell him about it, just minutes before the call from the local police came in, but still. "We have Dr. Reid to thank for that." Emily's eyebrows shot up and she glanced at me.

"Reid?"

"I was jogging this morning and I found her by the beach," I explained, feeling my cheeks flush a little. "She was stabbed five times in the abdomen." Hotch nodded and stood up from his place at the table.

"That keeps up with the pattern of our UNSUB. The first victim was stabbed once, the second twice and so on." He motioned to the pictures. "Either he's just getting angrier, or there's a methodical pattern to this. Perhaps he's working up to a certain number. Or maybe he just likes to _count_."

"It seems to me that this guy is trying to recreate something," Morgan put in, rubbing his chin absently.

"He doesn't seem angry, either; it's too planned. He makes sure everything is perfect. He follows the same pattern with each victim. According to the autopsy reports and missing persons', he keeps them for about three days until he kills them. He feeds them, but keeps their hands tied so they won't escape. Then he rapes them, dresses them in black underwear and stabs them when he's finished. They are dumped into the ocean, probably far away from shore, and left to die. The first victim, Tanya White, twenty-four, died of hypothermia rather than blood loss. Her stab wound was jagged, and there were hesitation marks on the skin around it."

"He was nervous the first time," said Emily, her rapt attention on Hotch and Rossi. "He wasn't sure exactly how he wanted to do it."

"The second victim, Alexandra Peterson, twenty-six, was stabbed twice; one hit the Abdominal Aorta, she bled out in minutes. The third, Sandra Lukas, twenty-two, wasn't so lucky. He nicked the Renal Vein with the third laceration, but it would have taken her hours to die."

I noticed Emily shiver. She was putting herself in the third victim's shoes; alone in the water, drifting, slowly bleeding to death. It was a pretty awful way to go. "The fourth, Ava Bell, twenty-three, had four stab wounds. He hit the Superior Mesenteric Artery; it would have taken a half-hour, tops."

"What happened to the fifth victim?" I asked my voice about an octave higher than it normally would be. This wasn't any other case. This one was special. I had seen life in that girl's eyes. But I had also seen the pain and despair. I had to find her would-be killer.

Hotch picked up a file from the table. Morgan was watching me, his eyes scrutinizing. He was profiling my reaction to the information, probably. I hadn't told anyone what had really happened on the beach that morning; I briefly went over it with Rossi, but avoided specifics. My eidetic memory kept replaying it over and over in my mind like a broken DVD, the fear I felt for her as she was torn from my arms by the EMT. I realised I was thinking instead of listening, and focussed again on Hotch.

"...didn't hit any main arteries or organs. She could have been lying there for hours before she regained consciousness. She's still in critical condition at the moment, but the doctors are hopeful for a full recovery." I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding.

"So we can't interview her yet?" asked Emily, tucking her hair behind her ears.

"He'll send one of us down to talk to her later... when she's conscious," grumbled Rossi, sitting back down as Hotch paced in front of the board.

"All of the women are similar in appearance; Caucasian, female, early to mid-twenties, long dark hair, slim and average height. We have to assume he's picking his victims because they remind him of someone."

"There's no pattern in _when _he takes his victims, either," I put in, looking down at the file Rossi had slid to me. "The first and second were a month apart, the second and third three weeks, the third and fourth eighteen days, the fourth and fifth twenty-six days. We have to assume that he's picking them when he's stressful, or bothered by something. Something in his life must be reminding him to kill interminably."

"So we don't know when he'll strike next, but we know who he's targeting," said Morgan, wetting his lips with his tongue. "He might have lost someone who looked like these women, maybe in the same way he's killing them. Or he might have seen a murder like these, and he's trying to recreate it."

"Either way, it's personal to him," I said, closing my eyes. I saw Leah's looking up at me, scared and in pain. They snapped back open. "He makes sure the details are just perfect. He's not doing this to get attention, or else he'd put the bodies somewhere easy to find. He couldn't have known where the bodies would wash ashore, or even if they would. They could have been taken by a current farther out to sea and eaten by fish, ruining his work." I ran a hand through my hair. "No, he's doing this for himself. It's either for his pleasure or a need to copy the archetype."

Rossi nodded. "We have to find out where he's getting his victims from. We should interview the families and friends, co-workers if we have to. If there's a connection between these women, we need to find it." I nodded.

"Reid, why don't you go stay with the fifth victim until she wakes up?" asked Hotch, looking me in the eyes. He obviously saw how worried I was for her. I nodded and got numbly from my seat as he began to hand out the other's assignments.

I walked swiftly from the building, calling a cab from my cellular phone as I went. I could hear Morgan laughing behind me, and Emily's voice drifting over. How could he _laugh_? Women were dying; innocent women like Leah, right at home in Quantico. It was _wrong_. And he was _laughing_. I ground my teeth together with frustration.

The cab seem impossibly slow on my ride to the hospital. The driver was careful; much like I was on the road, but it was annoying when you wanted to get somewhere fast. I realised that this must be what the team feels like when I'm driving. Hands at ten and two, eyes on the road but check your mirrors, always go the speed limit or below... it must be awful to drive with me.

"Thanks," I said, a grouchy tone to my voice, as I handed the cap driver a handful of bills. I got out of the cab and stumbled up the steps and into the lobby. All I had to do to get into her room was flash my badge and say "FBI." She was out of the ICU, but sedated for the moment, I was told by a doctor as I approached her door. I entered her room and closed the door behind me, but stayed standing in the doorway. I wasn't her family; I didn't know her. It could be proper for me to go much closer.

I sat down in the chair beside the door, crossing my legs. I looked at her curiously. I hadn't realised how beautiful she was on the beach, there hadn't been enough time to admire her slender nose, long lashes and oval face with high cheekbones. Now that I watched her sleep, I realised how angelic she looked. She had small rosebud lips and a square jawbone, eyes the perfect distance apart, according to the Golden Ratio. Her hair no longer looked wild. Someone had brushed it straight since she'd arrived, and it hung loosely around her head, splayed out on the white pillow.

I realised, of course, that it was weird to stare at one thing too long. I liked to observe everything I could for as long as I could; an odd tendency I'd picked up as a child. Morgan commented on it, once, and ever since I've been trying not to do it. I even closed my eyes for a minute, trying to think of something, _anything_ that would eradicate my mind of the image that seemed etched permanently into my corneas as of late. That image, of course, was Leah's petrified green eyes looking up at me, begging me to save her.

My eyes snapped open. Damn my eidetic memory! The pain, the anguish— one thought came to mind as I contemplated the emotions reeling across her delicate face in my too-clear memory; "_Call no man foe, but never love a stranger._" The quote by Stella Benson seemed out of place in my usually very tidily organised train of thought.

The first part meant nothing to me at that time, because I'd already called many a man my 'foe,' so to speak. I mean, I caught serial killers for a living! I hated every single one of them, deep down in my core. They'd taken lives, precious things that should never have been wasted. I myself had killed a man; but I had been aiming for his leg, and he had done far more damage than I in killing him. He would have continued, also, so really... I still couldn't justify it. For a month afterward I saw his face in my mind, moments before the bullet caught him between the eyes.

The second part of the quote that had to reason to penetrate my mental barrier that I set up to stop myself from thinking and blurting out irrelevant things at inappropriate times, of course, had a meaning. I wasn't sure what made it come to me, so to speak. I'd never spoken more than two words to the girl, and yet I found myself thinking... no, _knowing_, would be a more appropriate term... that I would to absolutely anything for her. Anything to keep her safe, to keep her happy; and I hadn't spoken more than a dozen words to her!

Still, her limp form, looking tiny and unprotected on the hospital bed before me, caused me more heartache than I thought possible to gain from a stranger. I'd heard of a 'broken heart' of course. I'd never actually experienced one; I wasn't exactly the type to date, or anything even closer for that matter. The closest I'd come was when I had to put my mother away. She begged me not to do it, told me that was she lucid enough most of the time. I knew she was lying through her teeth. She was deteriorating, and I couldn't leave her alone. God knows what would happen!

I put my elbows on my knees and leaned forward, placing my chin on my fists. I began to observe her again, wondering how on Earth anything could be so beautiful when unconscious. I sat straight up again and blinked a few times in rapid succession. I had just called her beautiful. She had been kidnapped, restrained, stabbed and, if the killer was true to form (which he would be, as these people can't change their pattern without something huge forcing them to), raped. I was looking at victim, admiring her beauty, while she was in pain. I felt awful. I felt dirty. I felt like I shouldn't be allowed to be here.

I put my hands on the armrests of the chair and prepared myself to stand up; but the file on my lap caught my eye and made me pause. I had to interview her when she woke. Hotch was counting on me to be objective and do my job. I removed my hands and put them back in my lap. Taking deep breathes and closing my eyes, I slowly began to recite Charles Dickens's "Oliver Twist" in my head. It was the only thing I could think of to do while waiting.

By Chapter Seven, I was so completely bored that I opened my eyes. I noticed as I looked at her for a third time that her eyes fluttered beneath their lids. Either she was close to waking, or in a very high state of REM sleep.

I picked up the folder off my lap and stood, arching my back a small amount to stretch the cramped muscles. Her eyes flickered again, and I dragged the chair to her bedside so I could be more face-to-face with her when she woke. I figured it would be easier for her to make the transition from unconsciousness to consciousness if she had someone close-by to tell her she was in a hospital and not to panic. Also, I did have to question her; it was probably best to get it over with as soon as possible so she would be less likely to develop some kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Again, I began to recite "Oliver Twist," this time under my breath, and all the while watching her face. This close to her, I could see tiny flaws I hadn't noticed before; a tiny scar above her left eyebrow, little creases in the corners of her eyes, a freckle under her jawbone and a hole in the side of her nose (a piercing, was my best guess); if you could call those _flaws_. I found them interesting. I wondered how she had gotten the scar.

Slowly, as I muttered the familiar story to myself, my eyes began to try and close themselves. My sleeplessness from the night before was catching up with me, and not at a very opportune time. I did eventually close my eyes, somewhere around the middle of Chapter Eleven. I think I remember stopping my narrative. That was when, I suppose, I fell asleep.


	3. Meeting Again

_Leah's Point of View_

I felt happy. I knew that something was up, because 'happy' hadn't been a word I'd used lately. I had the urge to giggle. Again, something was fishy with that. I had been kidnapped. That man... he...

I wanted to shake my head to rid it of those thoughts, but I felt like my entire body was encased in molasses. I stretched out my fingers slowly, experimenting. It took a great deal more effort to do just that than it normally would have for me to do a couple of jumping jacks. Opening my eyes seemed a far cry from possible.

Sluggishly, I resurfaced. When my brain broke the water, so to speak, my eyes flew open with the sudden freedom to do so. I blink a few times fast, letting my eyes adjust to the light. It was very light. The room where he kept me was dark. Memories began to resurface. Darkness for what seemed like forever... him on top of me... the pain as he stuck a knife into my stomach... cold water, feeling frozen... a beach, and the sudden will to survive... a kind stranger holding me and calling 9-1-1. I sighed, and then looked around a little.

The walls were mint-green and nauseating; the ceiling done in cheep white Styrofoam tiles; there was a light in the center of the ceiling; the light was large and round and generic looking. A soft beeping filled my ears as well as the sound of people talking distantly; too muffled for me to pick out individual voices or words. A hospital was the only sane conclusion.

There was another sound, too. Breathing, sighing... and was that snoring? I gingerly turned my head to look in the other direction, wincing as my neck didn't want to cooperate. I had slept wrong, and my neck ached.

I found myself face to face with _him_; the beautiful angel of a man who had come to my rescue. And he could only be described as angelic; high cheekbones and pale skin, dark hair loosely tucked behind oval ears, soft pink lips, a tiny cleft in his chin and a prominent Adam's apple that bobbed down, then back up as he swallowed in his sleep. I forced myself to sit up a little. He could be a model, if he gained some weight. Perhaps he was anorexic. The guy sure looked skinny enough to have an eating disorder.

But why was he here? Sure, he saved my life, but did they really let strangers into a hospital to visit patients? My eyes fell on the manila folder in his lap. It had a large FBI seal on it. This man was an FBI agent? He looked light enough for a strong wind to blow him over! At least that explained why he was in my hospital room. He was here to ask me about my... ordeal.

I forced myself to sit up, plumping up my pillow and leaning it against the backboard of my bed. I was very cautious of my stomach. I supposed they must have sown up the stab wounds, and I didn't want to hurt my stitches. I leaned back against the pillow with a sigh, and again turned my attention to him. I almost didn't want to wake him up, he looked so peaceful. And he looked like he needed the sleep. He had dark circles under his eyes that seemed to accent his hollow-looking cheeks.

I reached up a hand and touched said cheek with the back of my index finger. It was a compulsive thing to do, and very out of character for me. But I guess near-death experiences change a woman, right?

He jumped, his head falling off the fist he had been resting the other cheek on. He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes then looked at me. He seemed to be... not looking _through_ me, exactly, but he wasn't looking _at _me in the way that other people looked at me. Almost as though I was a specimen held under a microscope, or something of that nature.

He cleared his throat, and my hand fell limply back onto the bed sheet. "Miss Banks," he started, and I noticed that his voice about an octave lower than I remembered. Yes, I distinctly remembered his voice being a high, piercing sound that kept me awake; asking me what my name was, telling me that help was coming.

"It's Leah," I told him, interrupting whatever he had been about to say. He swallowed, and his Adam's apple bobbed again.

"Okay, Miss— Leah. My name is, uh, Dr. Spencer Reid. I'm a, uh, agent with the— the BAU, the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the FBI, which used to be called the BSU, the Behavioural Science Unit... it's part of the NCABC, the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which is also part of the CIRG, the Critical Incident Response Group..." he babbled. I listened intently, trying to catch everything he was saying, but it was difficult at the pace he was talking, and all the acronyms he was throwing at me.

"And you're here to ask me some questions," I finished for him, wiggling around a little to get comfortable in the lumpy hospital bed. "Shoot." I was being cocky, and rather insensitive. I should be bawling. I should be distressed. I was raped. I was almost murdered. This man saved me, and I was grateful, but I held all those emotions inside where he couldn't see them.

He seemed surprised at my abrupt ending to his speech, but he took it as a way out anyway. He opened the file and clicked a pen he must have had in his pocket, poising it above a blank lined sheet of paper inside the file. Finally he asked, "What happened to you after you were taken?" And all hell broke loose. At least, inside of me, it did.

I couldn't stop the tears, they just kept coming. I buried my face in my hands, embarrassed, not seeing his reaction. One simple question did that to me? He just asked what happened to me, and I break. The memory began to replay itself in my head, torturing my soul.

* * *

_Spencer's Point of View_

What was I supposed to do? I asked one question and she fell to pieces, weeping in front of me like a wounded animal. She tried to keep it quiet, muffling the sounds of her sobs with her hands, but _really_, like I wouldn't notice her bawling her eyes out?

"There, there," I said awkwardly, gently patting her on the shoulder. It didn't help at all. She continued her crying, and I sat awkwardly beside her. _Awkwardly: the adjective of my life._ Eventually she calmed down enough that I felt I could talk to her. "I'm sorry," I apologised, "I should have been more courteous. I should have asked you something less upsetting to start with, but I figured you would want to get it out of the way first and begin the healing process..."

The tears stopped all together while I was talking, and she stared at me as though I was speaking a different language. "What?" she asked me, her voice shaking, yet still as velvety smooth as I remembered it being.

"I'm sorry," I said again, ducking my head a little. "I thought you'd want to... get it over with..." I paused. "So you could stop thinking about it, forget it, and heal." Her eyebrows shot up like rockets, and I knew I'd said something wrong.

"Forget about it? I can't just forget what happened to me! I was held in the hold of a ship for God knows how long, in the dark! And he... and he..." I thought she might start crying again, but wrote down what she had said— the hold of a ship. She sniffled, then wiped her eyes and continued. "I don't know _who you think you are_ trying to come down here and tell me that I should forget, _Dr. Reid_." She seemed very angry.

"Sorry," I apologised again, "I didn't mean it like that—"

"Of course you didn't," she cut me off, crossing her arms. She winced visibly at the movement.

"Are you in pain? Would you like me to get a nurse for you?" Her lip quivered.

"No, I'm fine." She sighed, uncrossing her arms with another noticeable wince and folding her hands in her lap. "Sorry I barked at you." I was a little taken aback, but did not comment on this.

"You have been through a very traumatic experience; I should have been more considerate." I paused for a moment, thinking. "I still have to ask you about what happened, but maybe if we talked about something else for a while..." I tried. She looked at me, a tiny hint of a smile on her oh-so-perfect rosebud lips.

"Okay."


	4. Questions

_Leah's Point of View_

He asked me all the basics; my full name, age, height and weight; whether or not I dye my hair (I do not); my occupation. I explained to him that I was an artist and an aspiring writer; he seemed mildly surprised. Do I look like the office type, I wonder? Or perhaps I look a little too 'out there' to a writer... if a not-quite-published-yet one.

"I mostly paint landscapes," I told him, cheeks flushing a little when he asked me what my job(s) entailed. He nodded, making a note in that file of his. His fingers were long, and he wrote in a quick, messy scrawl. "But sometimes I work on commission, so I paint whatever the client wants me to."

"We may need a list of those clients, later," he told me calmly, "But not right now." I nodded. "What was the last thing you painted?" He asked this question as if he were interested, instead of the emotionless questioning he'd been doing before.

"A modern representation of human failures in sepia tones for a man who lives on the East side of Quantico," I said, and his brow creased a little as though he was trying to imagine what such a painting would look like, "He owns a gallery and heard about my work from a past client of mine. She recommended me when she heard he was planning a new piece."

"Did he like it?"

I frowned. "I never got to show it to him. I was on my way to his gallery when....." I froze, memories flooding into my mind like a flood of water from a broken dam. "Oh." I choked out the word. Mind reeling, I closed my eyes, pushing my lids together tightly.

"Leah?" I could hear him, but didn't respond to his probing of, "What's wrong? Are you alright?"

The answer, of course, was _no_. I was _not_ alright! _Everything_ was going wrong. I _had_ to get that painting to Mr. Jensen! And I had _no clue_ where it was... where _he'd_ put it. I'd spend a week on that canvas, and it was all for nothing. Why me? Why had he chosen _me_? An artist from Nokesville, who moved to Quantico in hope of recognition; a college drop-out; an average twenty-something with big dreams that have very little hope of success; _me_.

I distantly felt a sob rack through my body. It hurt the stitches like hell, but I barely took notice. I felt like I was dreaming; _maybe this all isn't real,_ I thought, _maybe he didn't do those things to me!_

And maybe I was a purple unicorn from Venus with a pie crust on my head. Of course it happened. Another sob shook me, and I heard voices in the distance. Dr. Reid's voice, asking me questions. But I couldn't see him anymore. Everything was black, too dark, though my eyes were open. He touched my arm and I flinched.

_"Please," I begged as he ran his rough hands over my arms slowly, "Please stop. I'll do anything. I won't tell anyone! Please, please l-let me go. I won't tell anyone what happened. Not a soul. I promise." A light came on as he pulled a cord above my head; I closed my eyes to avoid it, but it burned through my lids. After days of darkness, the light hurt my eyes._

_"Shh," he whispered, stroking my cheek with the back of his hand. "Shh. It's alright." I sobbed bitterly, shaking my head, pulling away from his touch. "Ah, ah, ah," he said, taking my chin in his hand and turning my face towards him. _

_I opened my eyes and was met with his; they were a beautiful light blue, but cold and uninviting. It was the first time I had seen him, but I knew his face in a moment as though I had known it forever. "Please," I breathed, and he laughed._

_"I'm sorry, my precious," he said, stroking my cheek again. Still holding my chin so I had to look into his eyes, he ran other hand down my neck slowly, leaving goose-bumps where he touched. These were not goose-bumps of pleasure, but of impending pain. His hand trailed lower, and I whimpered as he touched my breasts through the cotton shirt I was wearing, unwelcomed; had I been expecting him to ask first?_

_"Stop," I said, eyes begging his, "Don't." His eyes lit up at the word, as if it meant something to him. He let go of me, and I tucked my chin to my chest, watching him carefully. His eyes were still cold, but they were distant, as though he were daydreaming. _

_He walked around the chair I was tied to, pulling out a knife. I whimpered again. What was he going to do to me? I shivered with anticipation as the cold metal pressed against my wrist, but he didn't hurt me; he cut the rough ropes that held my hands behind my back._

_I was so shocked, that for a moment, I didn't move at all. Then I brought my hands in front of me and rubbed my wrists, noticing how they were not as rope-burned as I had thought. I must not have struggled much, but I couldn't remember._

_"A-are you letting me go?" I asked in a voice that waivered with fake confidence. He laughed, and I shivered again._

_"Get up." Shakily, I stood; my footing unsure with the rocking of the boat. He walked around the chair in front of me, his eyes roaming over me like I was a piece of meat. I felt utterly exposed, even fully dressed; though I wouldn't be for long. He came over to me with the knife and slowly began to pop the buttons of my blouse with it. I stood there, stock still, too scared to do more than breathe._

* * *

_Morgan's Point of View_

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Peterson," Emily said, patting his dark-skinned hand comfortingly, "It's such a horrible thing to lose your wife like this, and I know this must be very difficult, so thank you very much for helping us out." She was laying it on a little thick, I thought, but Mr. Peterson seemed the buy into it.

"Please, call me Rajan," he insisted with a slight accent, probably Middle Eastern of some kind. "I don't know if my answers to your questions will be of much help, but I will try."

"That's all we can ask," she replied, putting her hands back into her own lap.

"Is there any reason you think that your wife might have been targeted? Did she have any enemies that you know of?" I asked, trying not to sound like the 'bed cop', because I really hate that routine. Rajan shook his head.

"No, none at all; _everyone_ loved Alex. She was the kindest human I ever met. We were soul mates." Emily put on her sympathetic face, and I nodded gravely.

"She hadn't gotten in any fights recently?"

"_Never_, she was completely anti-violence. I don't think she has ever raised her _voice _before."

"Do you recognise these women?" Emily began putting photographs of the other victims on the coffee table in front of him. Each of the women had a very similar look; some could have been mistaken for sisters, they were so alike. And they were all beautiful, by any standards.

"I haven't seen them before," whispered Rajan as he shook his head slowly. He looked up at me, wide-eyed. "Did what happened to Alex happen to them, too?" Emily patted his hand again.

"We're trying to stop this," she said, "We want to get justice for you and the other families. What do you remember about the day your wife went missing? Where was she going?"

"She just went for a walk to the grocery store. We were out of milk." His hands shook, and he clutched them together in his lap uneasily. "I called the police when she wasn't home after an hour. I even went looking for her myself."

"What was she wearing? How did she have her hair done?" I prompted. Some UNSUBs pick their victims based on appearance. This one obviously had a thing for white brunettes, but their clothing could have had an impact.

"She had her jacket on, it was black. And jeans, I think. And she was wearing a scarf that my niece made her," he said fondly, his hands' shaking slowing; "It was red. Sashi knitted it herself." He paused, looking from Emily to me and back to Emily. "Did her appearance... how did he pick her?"

"We don't know that yet," Emily said while collecting the photos and slipping them back into the file on her lap. "But when we catch him— and we will— I promise, you'll know what happened, and he'll pay for what he did to Alex."

"Thank you." I nodded and stood up. Emily followed my example.

"Thank _you_, Rajan," she said, shaking his hand and stepping around the chair I had been sitting in. "Bye."

We left the Petersons' home and got into the car. "Poor guy," she muttered as she did up her seatbelt, "Losing your soul mate at twenty-six."

I nodded. "Hopefully we'll stop this guy before another man does." I did up my own seatbelt and started the car. "Call Reid, will you? Maybe he got something more useful from number five."

Something inside my stomach flinched at the words I had used. '_Number five_'? When had victims become numbers? I didn't even know 'number five's name; only that she was alive and Reid had something to do with that. I used to learn each name, each date, and each person. It was hard to be objective, doing that, so I guess I unconsciously stopped thinking about them as people, and more like a name on a list, or a number in the case. I didn't like that. Emily treated them like people. Even Hotch and Rossi didn't use numbers.

Emily was staring at me. "What?" I snapped, a little louder than I planned on being. She looked slightly confused.

"Aren't you going to drive?" We were still parked in the driveway, idling.

"Sorry," I mumbled, and pulled off the gravel driveway and onto the asphalt road, "Lost my train of thought. We can't all be geniuses." In silence, we started the drive back.

* * *

_Spencer's Point of View_

"What happened? Is she okay? Why is she not—?" The nurse glared at me, looking at me with dark brown eyes that did not look friendly. Her mousy hair was pulled up into a tight bun at the base of her neck. She has a little mole on her very pale cheek. Her nose was a little too wide for her face, her cheekbones a little too high.

"She fainted," she muttered disdainfully, "We had to sedate her." I fiddled with the papers in my hands, shifting from foot to foot.

"I'll be back," I told her, and she rolled her eyes. I got the impression that she was not a very nice person. I left the hallway, or rather, trotted further down it, to the waiting room. From there I exited from the nearest door to get outside, and found myself in a parking lot. I pulled out my cell phone and turned it on.

"Hotch, she fainted," were the first words out of my mouth. They were squeaky, and sounded almost panicked, even to my own ears.

"Did you get anything from her before she did?" He, on the other hand, sounded professional and business-like, as always. Not the least bit concerned, though he might be. Who knows, with him? He wears a very convincing mask sometimes.

"She mentioned being in the hold of a ship, and it being dark," I said, "But that's about it." I heard Hotch sigh with dissatisfaction, and I felt a twinge in my stomach. I always feel bad when I let Hotch down. I should have censored what I said around her more, been nicer and gotten her to open up to me, but I hadn't.

"Stay with her and see if you can get more out of her once she wakes up. But don't pressure her, and try to be kind. She's been through a lot, Reid. Don't forget that." I nodded numbly.

"Yes." I hung up and went back to wait in her room for her to wake again.


	5. Profile

_Leah's Point of View_

I opened my eyes later, feeling very sad in the pit of my stomach. He was still in my room, reading a medical text of some kind; but he wasn't _really _reading it, he was just skimming it with his eyes and flipping the pages as if he were. He hadn't notice me wake.

"You're still here," were the first words out of my mouth. He jumped and looked up, hazel eyes wide.

"Yes." He closed the book and put it on the small table beside him, then dragged the chair beside my bed. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"Memory," I said. It was the only way to describe it, though it didn't seem evil enough. Having lived through it once, then dreamed of it— I knew I'd be having night terrors about this for months if not years to come. He looked sympathetic.

"I still have to ask you about it," he said in a sad little voice. I nodded.

"I can do it."

"Are you sure? I mean, I wouldn't want to make you hurt any more than you already are..." I laughed.

"Believe me when I say that that's not possible." I swallowed hard. "Let's just get this over with." He nodded.

"Where were you when you were... taken?"

"I was going to Mr. Jensen's gallery with the painting I'd done for him. I was walking there, and then all of a sudden, it was dark." I shivered. "And my head hurt. I didn't see him. He must have hit me with something, though I don't know how no one saw it; it was in broad daylight."

"Around what time of day was it?"

"It was lunch time, I think. I hadn't eaten yet." It hurt to remember. It made me heart ache, but I did it. I recalled every memory I could, playing it over in my head. I had to help them find this guy.

"What do you remember next?"

"Just that it was dark. I couldn't see anything. My eyes hurt from trying."

"What did you feel? How did it smell? What impressions did you get from your captor?" I wrinkled my nose.

"It smelled like salt. There was a dripping noise. The boat rocked." I closed my eyes. "I could hear the wind, and the water hitting the hull. I could hear him whistling above deck. He sounded happy. My hands were tied behind my back. I was sitting in a wooden chair." I opened my eyes and looked at Dr. Reid. He was writing down every word I said. "Then he came down and tried to feed me. There wasn't any light, so I don't know how he could see, but he fed me pasta with a plastic fork. At first I refused it, but I hadn't eaten lunch, and when my stomach started protesting... I let him."

"How many times did this happen?"

"I know I refused the first two meals. I don't know what I was thinking— that they were drugged, or something. I watch too much TV. I think he fed me twice daily, breakfast and dinner, because by dinner I was very, very hungry. I think I ate four or five times."

"How did he treat you? Do you remember anything he said? How he said it?"

"He was... polite. He acted kind; but not like he was forcing it, or anything. He told me that..." I paused, my voice becoming quieter. "He told me that I was beautiful. That I looked _just like her_." The last few words were almost inaudible.

"Did he say who you looked like?" I shook my head, pressing my eyes tight together. He said 'her,' but nothing more than that.

"_He told me I was perfect._"

* * *

_Spencer's Point of View_

The sentence was so quiet; I had to lean in closer to hear her properly. Her voice was low, but still velvety soft. I jotted down everything she was saying; anything could be important. "How did he say it, when he told you that you were 'perfect'? Like he was excited about that, or unhappy?"

"He seemed... relieved." Her voice grew a little, so she was still half-whispering, but not longer practically silent. She opened her eyes. "Like that it was something elusive that he needed to... survive, almost." She sighed. "Like it was something essential to him; he _needed_me to be perfect." That told me that Morgan's theory— that the UNSUB was trying to recreate something— was the most probably motive.

"What happened next?"

"He came in. I thought he was coming to feed me again, but I couldn't smell food." She paused. "He smelled like peppermint." I wrote that down. "He, uh... he started running his hands up and down my arms. I begged him to let me go; I even promised not to tell the police if he did. And I wouldn't have, if he had just let me go. I hadn't even seen his face until then."

"But you did see his face?"

"Oh, yes. He turned on the light. It hurt my eyes, and I shut them— he kept telling me it was going to be alright, shushing me, trying to stop me from crying. He turned my face towards his. His eyes were very, very blue. Like the sky; but they were cold. He was white, and blond. He had a scar on chin. He was older than me, but not too cold. He looked calm, serene. He never got angry, no matter how much I begged." Tears welled in her eyes, threatening to spill over. I reached out and touched her arm, trying to comfort her, but she flinched away from me.

"Sorry," she murmured, swallowing her tears though it obviously took a great deal of effort to do so. "He called me, 'my precious,' and started... groping me." She laughed mirthlessly. "God, that sounds so middle-school. But it scared the hell out of me."

I felt terror vicariously through her words; I would almost smell the peppermint myself, almost see his very, very blue eyes. I felt scared for her, even though I knew what would happen in her story; even though I knew the ending.

"He took out a knife," she continued. "And he cut the ropes. He told me to get up. He was laughing, like it was funny." She started rubbing her wrists, which were still raw from the ropes they had been bound with, and there were soft, purple bruises dusting her forearms. "I couldn't breathe. He undressed me... and then he held my wrists and he p-pushed me to the ground..." Her voice cracked, and again the tears welled up. A single one fell, rolling silently down her pale cheek. It felt as if there was a fire starting in my stomach; anger building up inside me at what this monster did to Leah.

"I... I guess you know what happened then." I nodded.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, not knowing what else to say to her. She shrugged.

"It's not like it's your fault. Afterward, he... put me in underwear, but it wasn't mine. Then he took out the knife again. I hurt too much to move." She fell silent for a moment. "He picked me up and brought me up to the deck. It was cold and darker than inside— it was night time. Everything looked so strange... I only remember pieces of it after that. The way the moonlight cast the world into eerie shadows. The way he smiled as he raised the knife. The way I lay still as he stabbed me, hoping to hell that I was dreaming. I remember how cold the water was."

"He smiled as he did those things to you?" I heard my voice say, quiet and deep, though I didn't remember telling my mouth to make the words. I was angry at him. Terrified for her, of course, but more than anything, I just wanted to kill the man who did this to her. I was shocked to know that I could want to kill someone.

"He smiled _gleefully_." The fire in the pit of my stomach seemed to grow hotter with every word she spoke. I knew then that I had to find the blue-eyed monster. Not to send him to jail for life, no; he didn't deserve that. He needed a knife plunged into his stomach five times. He needed to be dumped, alive, into freezing water. He needed to die without any hope of rescue. I only wished I could do that to him without killing a part of myself along with him. But, oh! How I wanted to. I wanted to watch the life drain from his blue eyes. I'd never felt this angry before.

"Dr. Reid? Are _you _alright?" I looked up at her, anger fading as I looked at her. She was an innocent. She was an artist. She was beautiful. He had taken everything from her. And she was concerned about me? It was laughable.

"I'm fine," I said, trying to keep my voice even. Truthfully, I was angry. I was scare of myself— I wanted to kill someone? Me! And I was worried about her. And I was determined to catch her would-be killer. I wouldn't kill him, but I would make sure he would get life without parole. I would hope for the death penalty, but would rather do it myself.

Leah told me she couldn't remember anything else. The interview culminated with me giving her my business card, and telling her to call me if she remembered anything or if she 'just needed to talk.' I don't know why I added that on the end. I hadn't been planning on it. But never talking to Leah again seemed like a crime. I told her that I could psychoanalyse her if she wanted me to. She said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I left.

* * *

_Emily's Point of View_

Hotch cleared his throat, and basically asked us all to spill on what we'd learned. Morgan stepped up first, explaining what we learned for each of the victims' family. Two were going to the grocery store, one in the afternoon, the other late at night; one had walked, the other took her bike. One of the victims was taking the dog for a walk. The dog was found later, a good ways away from where he should have been. The fourth victim was coming home from work. She had been driving, her car found a few blocks away.

"Leah Banks was on her way to an art gallery," Reid put in, circling the gallery on a map he had set up before I arrived. His hands were shaking. The other locations were too circled, but there wasn't a pattern anywhere. The two who both went to the grocery store hadn't even been going to the same one.

Rossi sighed unhappily. "The only thing that connects these women is their appearances." He pressed a button on the phone and Garcia picked up with one of her usual comedic lines.

"_You have reached the Almighty Computer Goddess, how may I take your order?_"

"Garcia, have you found a connection in the victims yet?" asked Hotch impatiently. I was surprised. Hotch is rarely impatient. I thought maybe his unease over the situation had something to do with how weird Reid was acting; bouncing up and down a little in his seat, wringing his hands, fiddling with a pencil on the table, bending the corners of his notes. Reid rarely fidgeted. There was something with his case that was really bugging him, and Hotch obviously wanted this one solved fast (not that he didn't always) for Reid.

"_Unfortunately, no, I did not. Not a single blip on my radar, either. None of them used their credit cards after they were dead, and there weren't any witnesses, either. They just disappear, and then their bodies wash ashore._"

"Nothing was similar?" I asked, disappointed. I had been dreading the day that not even Garcia could find something to pull a case together.

"_You mean other than the fact that they could be clones of each other? No._" Reid squeaked slightly, but no one noticed. They were all collaborating on what the killer's motive was, how he was abducting them, arguing on why there weren't connections. I kept telling them that it couldn't be random, it was too planned; but no one was listening to anyone else very much.

"He's trying to recreate the archetype," said Reid, who until then had basically been silent since he marked the locations on the map. The team stopped their arguing and turned to watch him at he did his own profile. Even I fell silent. "He hits them over the head, probably when he knows no one is watching. He probably has out outside influence setting off his abductions." I was watching him, too. He got up from his chair and started to pace rapidly back and forth. "He chooses his victims based on their appearance, and ease of capture. He keeps them in a ship with their hands tied behind their backs for a few days, sitting on a wooden chair. He feeds them twice daily, so they become dependent on and trust him. He tells them that they are beautiful, and perfect. He told Leah Banks that she looked 'just like her.'" He paused, taking a long, shuddering breath.

"Banks told you all this?" I asked, surprised that someone had opened up so freely to Reid. It wasn't that he wasn't a good guy— he was. He was sweet, and kind, and smart. But I wouldn't spill my guts to the guy.

"Yes." He paused in his pacing, looking at me vaguely. Then he started back up again. "Looking like whoever he is staging his victims after is essential. She said he sounded relieved when he told her she was perfect. He rapes them, and dresses them in black underwear. He takes them up to the deck, where he stabs them and throws them overboard. He smiles as he stabs them. She used the word 'gleefully.'" I winced, in my mind seeing a shadowy figure above me with a knife, smiling gleefully.

"Did she say what he looked like?" asked Morgan, intrigued.

"White male, older than her but not 'old'— so I'm estimating mid-thirties— he has a scar on his chin, blond hair and has very, very blue eyes. She said they were like the sky, only cold. She mentioned that he was very calm the whole time."

"We should have her talk to a sketch artist," said Rossi. Everyone agreed, and we broke off for the day. Reid looked ill at ease. If anything, he looked like he was going to throw up.

"Good job with that profile, Reid," I commented, giving him a smile to try and cheer him up. He stared blankly at me in an almost disconcerting way.

"Thanks," he mumbled tonelessly.

"Try and get some sleep, you look tired," I suggested. He shrugged and left me standing alone silently. There was defidently something bothering him.


	6. Slipping

_Spencer's Point of View_

Hotch had, again, assigned me to talk to Leah— ask her if she would help me make a visual representation of the UNSUB with a computer program that was supposed to work better than having a sketch artist draw from a description. It was worth a shot; then again, _anything_ that could help us catch this creep was worth a shot.

I had the program with me on a BAU lap top computer when I walked into Leah's hospital room. She was sitting up with a tray across her lap, eating lime Jell-O. She smiled at me vaguely when I came into the room and shut the door.

"Does the FBI visit everybody this often, or is it just me?" she asked as I pulled the chair beside her bed again. She seemed more at ease than the last time I had been there. Either she was burying her ordeal, or was trying to be brave and overcome it. She seemed like the 'grin and bear it' type, so I assumed it was the latter.

"Not often do I have to privilege to talk to someone like you during work hours," I said truthfully, adjusting the lap top and my files so they sat comfortably in my lap. "My boss is being very considerate of the situation, because of how unique it is." Leah looked confused, so I explained. "We don't usually deal with live ones, in our unit, as a general rule. Not to mention the fact that I was the one who found you in the first place— nothing about this case is ordinary."

"I see. I doubt your boss, as nice as he sounds, would send you down here just to sit with me, so..." She ate a spoonful of her Jell-O. "What's up?"

Her calmness had me ill at ease, now. Her casual way of asking me why I was there was startling, coming from someone who had been through so much. After I had been kidnapped, nothing had been 'normal' to me for weeks. The way I talked, reacted to people coming near me or talking to me, walked and even the things I did were all off the norm following my abduction. Perhaps that was partially due to the drugs, but I didn't think it was customary for the average person to get over anything emotionally traumatizing this fast. It had been mere hours since the last time we had spoken, and yet she seemed much more together than that last time. Maybe that was just her personality, but I couldn't help but think that that was unusual.

"Hotch— Agent Hotchner, my boss— asked me if perhaps I could get you to help me create a picture of your attacker using this new computer program... it gives you a general face and you tweak it until it looks similar." Leah sighed.

"That won't be necessary." She put down her empty Jell-O container on the tray and moved it off to the side then pointed to the bookcase across the room, beside the door. "Could you pass me that?" I stood and put the laptop gently on the chair, crossed the room and picked up what she was pointing to; a simple 200 page Notebook brand blue notebook.

I handed it to her without a word, picked up the lap top and sat back down with it on my lap. She began to flip through the notebook, and then stopped, folding the back over so the page she had stopped on was the front. She offered me the notebook and I took it from her, not knowing what to expect.

It was a perfect drawing of him. From easily descriptive things— his round face, chin scar, short blonde hair and cold eyes— to more insignificant details— the stubble on his chin, flared nostrils, imperfect (yet slightly nauseating) smile with pointy incisors and large front teeth— she had him perfectly sketched in pencil on the lined notebook paper.

I looked up at her, wide-eyed. As I am not artistically inclined myself, I found her talent a wonderful gift that should be cherished. I also found that the fire in my stomach— the part of me that wanted to kill the monster who had treated her this way— grew stronger when I saw for the first time how much potential she had.

"Wow," I mumbled, speechless— and that never, _ever _happens to me. I licked my lips. "Well, we defidently don't need that program, then." She nodded.

"You can take that with you. I thought it might help," she said, smiling a little, "It's not like _I'm_ going to forget his face anytime soon." Her words sounded bitter-sweet. I nodded, feeling sad. No, she was not going to forget his face anytime soon. She might never. I would never forget the face of my captor, Tobias Hankel. Though perhaps my eidetic memory had something to do with that; and I hoped that was the case, so she would not have to see this man's face in her dreams for many nights to come.

"It will, help," I agreed, "Thank you." I tore out the page with his picture and offered her back the notebook, then slipped the offending paper into my case file. I couldn't look at it anymore, though I knew I would remember it forever— damn eidetic memory. His face would probably haunt me until we found him. Me and my moronic nightmares; I hate them, but they're a part of me.

She nodded and looked down at her notebook, which was now on a blank page. I wondered briefly where she had gotten it— had a nurse gotten her it, or had a family member or friend dropped by? Perhaps her boyfriend or husband had brought her it.

My stomach twisted. I didn't know why I was upset at the thought of her having an intimate relationship. Then I remembered how I had called her beautiful. I was experiencing jealousy— jealousy over someone I barely knew, and had no clue if she was seeing anybody. Not that that mattered! It did not. I couldn't see her in a romantic light; oh, _no_. A victim of a brutal attack, raped and stabbed... no, I would not think about how lovely her high cheekbones were or how her lips reminded me of Lila's. I would not wonder how it would be to hiss those lips, or run my fingers through her dark hair. I would not! I could not! If we had met under different circumstances, I figured that I would have had a crush on her. But at this time, there was no way I could feel anything for her. I would force myself not to, if I had to. Because she was a victim; I could not have feelings of a romantic nature for her. No. I would not let myself.

"Are you okay?" Her voice made me jump and I fumbled with the computer and file in my lap as I was pulled out of my dream-world rather abruptly. I need to censor my thoughts, or else I drift away like I just had into the bowls of my own brain. I blinked rapidly and regained my composure as best as I could, then cleared my throat.

"Oh. Yeah, sorry," I paused. "I'm fine. I was just thinking, you know." I moved the computer into my arms and stood, pushing back the chair with my foot as I did so. "Thank you, for the drawing. It's sure to be a big help in our investigation." She nodded, her eyebrows pushed together.

"Yeah, sure," she said, "It was no trouble at all."

"We'll find him," I told her as I walked toward the door. I paused with my hand on the doorknob and turned back to her, shifting the weight of the laptop to one side. "I promise." She smiled, and I left.

I didn't see her again for a while.

I didn't sleep that night. I saw her eyes when I closed mine; scared, alone, afraid, desperate. They haunted me. The next morning Morgan and I went around to the women's work places, grocery stores, homes, favourite restaurants and showed the picture to the people there. We left copies at all the public bulletin boards we knew of, at coffee shops, everywhere we could think of. I even pinned one on my bulletin board in my apartment, above my desk. No one had seen him. I couldn't understand it. The drawing was perfect; flawless. Leah was an amazing artist.

The next night, I didn't sleep either. Nothing new had turned up. There had been no changes in the case whatsoever. I heard through the grapevine that Leah had been released from the hospital. Every now and then Emily or Hotch or Morgan or Garcia would give me a sympathetic look, tell me I looked thin or mentioned the dark circles under my eyes; this went on for a week. A week we wasted trying to catch the uncatchable, while we could have been after another killer and found him by now. That's when the guilt started.

Ten days after I saw Leah at the hospital, Agent Todd gave us a missing kid case. A little girl had gone missing in Alabama. Rossi told me we'd continue to look for Leah's attacker after we got back, but at the moment, ten-year-old Cate Hale took priority. I was silent most of the flight, and only spoke when we were there when it was necessary to the case. I tried to be a productive member of the team, but I found myself slipping; at first I stopped doing little things that came naturally, like shaving my five o'clock shadow and brushing my teeth after lunch.

After we solved the case (it was a horrifying, and unfinished-feeling end, but an end none the less) and returned home, those little things became bigger things: forgetting to _eat_ lunch, take out the trash, wash the dishes, or take a shower in the morning. Things that used to be routine became stupid feeling and tedious. I craved Dilaudid more than I had in months. Everything was falling apart before my eyes. And we were no closer to solving the damn case!

I wanted to hard to keep my promise to Leah Banks. She seemed like a distant memory to my sleep deprived brain. As I lay awake on my bed fully dressed six days after our return to Quantico, I wondered if I had imagined her. No person's eyes could be that green; my eidetic memory must be exaggerating. No woman's face could be so flawless, no scar so beautiful. I must be misremembering. Perhaps she wasn't even as beautiful as I had thought. Perhaps my imagination had been running wild.

Those thoughts made me physically sick to my stomach. If I was misremembering Leah, perfect Leah... then something must be wrong with me. My eyes drifted close, and I drifted into a light sleep. I woke an hour later covered in a thin sheet of sweat from my nightmare; a nightmare filled with green eyes and bleeding wounds on a beach.

I glanced at the clock. It was two AM. I sat up and stumbled to the bathroom, splashing water on my face as soon as I could figured out how to turn the tap (I tried to turn it in the wrong direction for at least a minute or two). It didn't help. I was exhausted. How could one case, one girl, do this to me? I was breaking!

I did what I had to so I could fall asleep; I took a couple of Advil for the headache that constantly rattled my brains and a tablet of over-the-counter cinnarizine for the nausea. I had long ago figured out what dosed could be used together without being dangerous. Chronic headaches and insomnia had plagued me before. The cinnarizine made me just drowsy enough to get through a night.

But every night the same thing happened. I would have the same dream, and the same events would follow. But it wasn't a dream. It always felt so _real_. Terror would tug at my stomach as the UNSUB Leah had drawn stood over me with a knife in his hand, a grin slowly spreading across his lips and a glint in his eye as he raised it high above his head. He would bring it down, and I would stiffen, waiting for the pain. As the knife touched my skin, but before it could tear through it, I would wake. Panting and sweating, head throbbing, stomach churning, muscles tight with anticipation of the agony, I would surface into consciousness. It happened just as the lethargic effects of the medication wore off. Usually, it would be almost time for work. I would drag myself out of bed, take a quick shower and get dressed as normally as I could; white or beige collar shirt, patterned tie, brown sweater vest, dark slacks and mismatched socks.

I started the day and tried to act normal. But nothing felt normal. It couldn't, until Leah was brought justice. I couldn't help but feeling that day would never come. And that just wasn't fair.


	7. Natural

_Spencer's Point of View_

Eventually, against my protests, Leah's case got put on the back burner. We'd wasted a ton of resources on it already, and we were no closer to finding her killer than we were a month ago. I felt awful. Honestly, I broke every time we got on that jet and went somewhere new to deal with a new killer. We always got him or her; _always_. So why hadn't we been able to catch this one?

It was looking more and more like a cold case. I couldn't stand it! Why didn't they understand that we _had _to find him? They didn't understand.

It had been thirty-seven days after I first found Leah when the sixth body was discovered. She'd been dead only a day or two, found on the same beach I had found Leah by an elderly couple going for a walk. She had the same dark hair, but brown eyes. Leah's were the only ones that were green. The other women all had hazel, or greenish-brown. Hers were the only green eyes. It made her different from the others. That was somehow comforting, even after Marie Craig had been discovered.

She had died from six stab wounds to the abdomen. She was found wearing black underwear, and nothing else. She was exactly like Leah, but nothing like her. She had been a dentist, married divorced twice by the time she turned twenty-five, not long before she was kidnapped. Her boss had reported her missing.

All the evidence had been washed away by the time CSU examined the body. I wanted to cry. We were _still_ no closer to finding this guy, and he had killed another innocent. It wasn't fair.

I decided, on some half-assed thought, that Leah might want to hear the news from me. I didn't want her slipping on the television and seeing another victim like herself had been found. I thought I could break the news more gently to her. So I looked up her address and drove myself there as soon as I could.

* * *

_Leah's Point of View_

There was a knock at my door. I quickly wiped the sticky tears from my cheeks. Another woman had been found dead, killed the same way I almost had. I just heard it on the news. I couldn't believe it. I really thought that Dr. Reid would find the man who had broken me. And yet I hadn't heard a single thing from him, and it was tearing me apart.

I put on a brave face and opened the door. I wouldn't cry in front of anyone. There he was! He looked a little worse for wear, but all in one piece. His hair had lost its shine and he had dark circles under his eyes, but he was alive. So why hadn't he given me updates? Why hadn't he at least _called_ to tell me how he was doing or how the investigation was going?

I let him in, anyway. I took a step back and he closed the door behind him. He looked sad. He knew nothing about what 'sad' really meant. He took a deep breath and looked down at his shoes. "Another body was found," he said quietly, and I rolled my eyes.

"I heard."

His head snapped up, and he looked me in the eyes. "I'm sorry." My bottom lip trembled. I promised myself that I would not cry, and yet here I was, on the verge of tears. What did he know about being sorry? He knew nothing! A tear ran down my cheek, burning like fire. I was so _angry_. I was angry that they hadn't found him yet. I was angry that he hadn't called. Angry that everyone just seemed to forget what happened to me happened at all. I was angry at everyone and everything. I was angry at _him_.

"I'm sorry, Leah," he repeated. "How are you... feeling?" He looked so put out to see me cry. He reached up a hand towards my cheek as if to wipe the tear away, but I would have none of it.

"Don't wipe my tears away like it will make everything okay!" I slapped his hand down and backed up several steps into my apartment. "I'll never be able to get that taste out of my mouth, or the feeling of his hands wrapped around my wrists away! You couldn't possibly understand what I've gone through every day since what happened. He took my dignity away from me. Will you ever experience the feeling of screaming your lungs out and not being heard? Begging, pleading, and crying for him to stop and not being acknowledged? I don't think so." He opened his mouth as if to say something, but what, I didn't care. I cut him off, continuing my rant. I guess I just needed to get it all out.

"I'm tired of people trying to offer me comfort on a situation they know nothing about. I can't and don't want to talk about how I feel, can't you respect that? No one knows the feelings I suppress every morning." My chest heaved with a dry sob that I couldn't suppress. "When I wake up and take a shower, try to scrub the memory away. I can't get clean. I have to live through each day with the feelings of being deprived, violated, unwanted and no good. I didn't ask for what happened to me, I don't deserve this misery. No one deserves this kind of pain. I have live forever with everything a cruel reminder of what's happened to me. I should have died on that beach!" I screamed the last sentence louder than I intended to. I was just so angry. Not at Dr. Reid, but at myself. And at the man who had done this to me. He took a step forward towards me, a sad look in his beautiful chocolate-coloured eyes.

"I don't want you to pity me, try to comfort me, or pretend that you get it, you don't! Don't pretend like everything's going to be okay. Are you oblivious to the fact that he is still walking the streets? He could just as easily have another girl on that boat right now, praying for mercy from heavens above. You can't comprehend what I live with from day to day. But everything happens for a reason right?" I let out a hollow sort of half-laugh. "What's the sense in my circumstance? What was my life supposed to teach me? All I've learned is that no one can be trusted! I mean, where was my angel while I cried? So don't think you know where I'm coming from, it's apparent to me that sometimes God just doesn't come through." I sobbed again, and he took another step closer, a look of understanding on his face. And for some reason, I felt like he did understand.

He took a step closer and hesitantly put his arms around me. And I cried. I cried for the women who had to go through what I did. I cried because I hadn't been set free along with them. I cried for a long time into his chest, making a large wet spot on his beige argyle sweater vest with my tear. He didn't seem to mind. He stood there, holding me gently, as huge sobs wracked my body.

What was I doing?! I barely knew this man. But he had kind eyes and a gently touch. Not once did he move his hands from the middle of my back, trying to cop a feel. Not once did he seem disgusted by my misery. I felt like he understood. He was warm, and comfortable. I liked that. Even as the tears slowly stopped, I didn't want to let go.

"Sorry," I mumbled, pulling away. His arms dropped to his sides.

"What for?" he asked, tilting his head to one side. I looked up at him, into his eyes, and it my train of thought went out the window.

"I don't remember." He chuckled. His laugh sounded natural, and happy. I didn't remember what it was like to be happy. Not since... it happened.

"Are you ever going to find him?" I whispered. He frowned slightly.

"I hope so." He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "I really do."

* * *

_Spencer's Point of View_

When I was in my car driving back to work, it hit me: I had just let a woman hug and cry on me for nearly an hour. I was never comfortable with women. And yet, comforting her, holding her while she cried, listening to her spill all her thoughts and her fears to me as she ranted... it all felt so natural. That was kind of scary. But no, I wasn't falling in love with her.

I closed my eyes when I got to a red light. Her green eyes were hopeful but sad as stared back at me. My eyes snapped open. No. I was defidently not falling in love with her.


	8. Normal Things

_Leah's Point of View_

In the weeks that followed my abduction, I had painted things that I couldn't look at once finished. My studio was filled with paintings that I had turned backwards so I wouldn't have to see them, leaning against the walls with their clean, white backs facing outward. They were all the same; dark, evil, some with blue eyes surrounded by nothingness, others of the parts of the boat I remember surrounded in darkness, or the blurry moonlit sky above the rocking waves I saw once I'd been tossed overboard like a piece of garbage that needed to be disposed of. I don't remember painting most of them.

There were several sketches in my sketchbook of _him_, too. They were everywhere; hanging on the walls of my apartment, on the walls of my studio, on every public notice board I saw. They were all the same, and I couldn't stand it.

I saw him everywhere I went. When I went to the store, I'd see a blond man and flinch. When I went to my studio, I'd paint him. When I turned on the television, his picture was on the news with the words, "_Serial Killer Still At Large._" It was eating away at my soul! And yet, Spencer Reid could make me forget. If only for half a second, when I looked into a pair of chocolate eyes so different from the baby blues that invaded almost every thought, I felt clean again. Like I'd finally washed the bastard off my skin, I felt cleansed and free again.

I'd screamed at him. I told him that I didn't want his pity. I told him I didn't want comfort. And then I'd cried in his arms. Warm, comforting, strong; his arms were like heaven. And afterward, after he'd left and I closed the door to my apartment, I still felt a little better. Not as good as I felt when I was with him, the angel in disguise as an FBI Agent, but better than before. And that was more than I had hoped for in the past weeks.

The tea pot whistled and my head turned in the direction of the kitchen. I barely remembered putting the kettle on, but I had, moments before he knocked on my door to deliver solemn news I'd already heard on the six o'clock news. He'd heard something and thought of me. It was comforting.

I turned down the burner and moved the kettle onto a cold one. Sighing, I poured myself a cup of boiling water and opened up my box of herbal tea bags. I was low. I should probably buy more. I dropped a bag into the hot liquid and made a jot note on my shopping list. It was about ten miles long by now. I'd avoided going out as much as possible, and grocery shopping was one of the things I'd put off so as not to face the public.

Little things like this had been the hardest things to get reused to. Making myself a cup of tea, shopping, eating at a restaurant, getting a full night's sleep, talking to a client; it all seemed too normal. And nothing was normal, anymore, except maybe Dr. Reid. He was the epitome of normality. Smart, good looking, quiet and shy; he was like the perfect background guy that no one really notices. He was my opposite.

Before my kidnapping, I had been wild, rowdy, unstable and more than a little too chancy with my own safety. On the weekends I partied until two and then painted until five. I got my nose pierced when I was eleven, and my navel at thirteen. I had my first tattoo when I was seventeen, and tried to hide it from my dad. He found it and I got yelled at for so long that he couldn't talk for three days afterward. I had my second done when I was nineteen, living on my own and struggling through community college. I moved across the country to Quantico the moment I graduated, striving to be a professional painter, and ending up working as a waitress for nearly two years before I finally got hired.

I can't say I've changed all that much. And I definitely can't say that I've changed for the better because of everything that's happened. But I haven't been myself since. I've been toned down and mild, meek around strangers and quiet when I'm painting. That's what freaks me out the most. I used to blast music as high as it would go as I painted, sing along and dance with the music and my brush strokes. The silence is... wrong. It's just wrong.

I sipped my tea and flipped channels on the TV. I found some old rerun of _Buffy_ and put down the remote; anything was better than news, which was all I seemed to get with my awful cable. I really needed to switch to digital, but I haven't had the time or the motivation.

My eyes sagged slightly. How long had it been since I slept? I couldn't answer that. Every time I managed to drift off, I'd have awful nightmares. He was haunting me. I couldn't escape it. My eyes sagged a little more and I turned off the television. I wasn't watching it anyways.

I looked at the clock. It was only eight thirty, and I was dead on my feet. I drained my tea in one gulp, hoping for it to wake me a little, but found it did no good. I rinsed it in the sink and dragged myself to my bedroom, yawning loudly as I through myself onto the soft mattress. Still fully clothed and not caring, I pulled the covers up to my chin and curled up in the usual ball to sleep. It came easier than usual. I just closed my eyes... and off I went.

And the nightmare didn't visit me. _I was painting in my studio, large brown swirls on an endless canvas of white. I took a deep breath and smelled chocolate. The paint wasn't paint; it was melted milk chocolate the colour of Dr. Reid's eyes. Music blared in my ears and I sang along softly as I stretched on my tippy-toes to try and reach the top of my canvas to cover it all in the wonderful colour._

I woke to my alarm clock blasting music in my ear. I yawned quietly and sat up, rubbing my eyes. I looked at the clock and did a double-take. It was eight in the morning! I had set my alarm to go off at six. How had I slept through it?

I turned it off and took a quick shower, throwing on the last clean t-shirt I had and a pair of old jeans. I needed to do the laundry. Oh, the normality! How completely mundane a thought! I hadn't been able to think that way in a long time.

"Reid," I whispered to myself as I pulled on my shoes as hurried out the door. "Spencer Reid." I couldn't believe it. Crying like an idiot all over a man who was practically a stranger had somehow made me feel well enough to sleep for nearly twelve hours, and then wake and have normal thoughts. It was completely stupid, but somehow... I felt like I needed to thank him.

I rounded the corner of my apartment building, walking quickly down the sidewalk. I had to meet a client at my studio in ten minutes! It was a twenty-minute walk without my car, which had died the same week my soul had. It still sat in the garage under my building, collecting dust for the past month. I really needed to take it into be serviced. Another thing I'd put off.

The sidewalk slowly became more crowded as I pressed closer to the heart of the city, still fast-walking. I glanced at my watch— four minutes until I was officially late. And normally, that wouldn't matter. But this client, Mrs. Thatcher, was very particular about time. If I was late, she'd bite my head off for an hour, and I really didn't want on such a good day, just to spoil my good mood.

People swirled around me like schools of fish in the ocean— groups moving together, in large or small clusters, or all by themselves, like me. I remembered my fifth grade teacher saying something about bees, and how they had patterns in their movements. Humans were much the same, I decided, as I watched a group of four businessmen walk together into a building, each with a briefcase and a suit on. I knew they would do the same thing the next day, and the next. It was comforting, in a way.

I glanced at my watch again. Two minutes. I started to run, jogging so as to reach my destination faster. But then I stopped dead in my tracks, my mouth open like a drowning fish myself. I gasped for air, stumbling into an older woman. "Watch it!" she said angrily, shoving me out of her way and into the path of a tall, dark-skinned man. He moved around me silently, never even looking in my direction.

I looked around wildly, my eyes scanning the crowd. But I didn't need to see him again to be sure. I _was _sure. I'd seen the man who had raped me, murdered my soul and others just like me. I would be dead if Dr. Reid hadn't been jogging that morning, because of that man. I wished I knew his name, so I could call him something other than 'that man'.

I was panicked. I used to have panic attacks when I was younger; I'd hyperventilate and freak out, just working myself up more. This was much like that, frantically looking for him. I had to be sure.

But he was gone. Had _he_ seen _me_? I hadn't even thought of that. If he had seen me— it was unfathomable. Tears sprung to my eyes. He could try again, finish what he started. I started running as fast as my shapely legs could go, knocking people out of my way like dominos. I wasn't running in the direction of my studio; no, Mrs. Thatcher had been completely forgotten. She was not even a fleeting thought in my panicking brain.

I ran home, out of the crowds and to the little dingy street that held my apartment building. The elevator would not go fast enough. My breath was too ragged. My legs and lungs were aching too much. But I got there, to my apartment, eventually. I fumbled with my keys to unlock my door, and tripped over my feet to get inside.

Where was it? Oh, where _was_ it? I flipped through the pages of the first available sketchbook, then the next, then the next. There was paper all over my apartment, the woes of being an artist, sketchbooks and notebooks filling every nook and cranny. "Come on," I muttered, flipping through another notebook desperately, "Come on..."

I grabbed a blue Notebook brand notebook off my bookcase and was startled when a little card fell out. "Yes!" I grabbed the card, flinging the useless book over my shoulder and holding the precious paper to my chest in triumph.

I found the phone much more easily, and dialled the number on the card so quickly I had to reread it before hitting send to make sure I had it right. He answered in his wonderful calming voice.

"_Dr. Reid speaking._"

"I saw him, Dr. Reid! I _saw_ him," I sobbed into the phone. I heard his sharp intake of breath.

"Leah?" he asked, though I could tell by his voice he didn't need to. He knew it was me. There was a pause. "I'll be right there."


	9. Defensive

_Spencer's Point of View_

I stood on her doorstep and anxiously waited for her to open the door. Her words echoed through my mind;_ I saw him, Dr. Reid. I _saw _him. _

Where could she have seen him? And there was no mistaking who she meant; she meant the bastard who had broken her, taken several human lives, and done unthinkable things to God knows how many women. It was sickening. It was horrible. I wanted to kill him.

Leah opened the door, and the first thing I saw was her wide eyes. Those big, green, beautiful eyes looked up at me with haunting uncertainty. She had an uncanny way of taking my breath away every time I saw her, so much so that it took me a moment until I was able to gasp out a complete sentence.

"You saw him?" I questioned, feeling anxious still. She nodded, not saying a word. "Where?"

"I was walking to my studio," she said calmly, opening her door a little wider so I could step inside. "I was being jostled around, trying to fight my way through a crowd... when all of a sudden, there he was. I didn't imagine him, I swear it. He was there." I looked at her, observant. She fidgeted, watching me apprehensively. "You don't believe me?"

"Of course I believe you," I tried to console her, reaching out my hand towards her. "I wouldn't assume you were trying to deceive me. What motive would you have to lie?" She flinched away from my fingers as they brushed her arm. She was shivering, and she wrapped her arms around herself protectively.

"What if he saw me?" she asked, her voice shaking. "He knows my face. He knows where I work. He could easily find my address— he could..." She choked on the words, but managed to get them out. "...finish what he started."

My mouth was dry. Fear crept into my system like a drug in my veins; what if he _did_ find her? What if he_ did_ decide to finish what he started? She was the only witness to his horrific crimes. Why wouldn't he want to silence her? What could be done to stop it?

I looked at Leah, noticing for the first time that there were new tracks of tears on her pale cheeks. The tears had spilled over in my silence, and my heart broke again. How could one human being tug on my heartstrings so much? "Miss Banks..."

She scoffed, wiping her tears away with the backs of her shaking hands. "I told you to call me Leah," she scolded, talking to me as though I was a disobedient dog.

"Leah," I started again, and took a deep breath. "I'm going to have to ask you some questions." And I did. We sat down on her sofa and I made her give me a description of what he was wearing, where exactly he was, street names; everything. I wrote them down in my messy handwriting, watching as her eyes darted to the right every so often during her answers. She was remembering. She wasn't lying.

I chastised myself for profiling her. She was a victim, not an UNSUB! She was an innocent, and I was scrutinising her body language to make sure she wasn't being deceptive.

"That's all I know," she mumbled finally, brushing her tears away again. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

"Miss— Leah, you've helped so much. This is a lot more than we could ever expect of you." She smiled a little and nodded, looking down at her hands, folded carefully in her lap.

"I think I'm scared," she admitted, still staring at her fidgeting fingers. She looked up at me suddenly, her eyes no longer brimming with unshed tears, but bright and determined. "I don't like being scared."

"We can get local police to assign a security detail to watch the neighbourhood, if it would make you feel more comfortable," I told her slowly, knowing that it probably wouldn't ease her fears. She sighed.

"Thanks but no thanks. I want him to know that I'm not afraid of him. I am afraid; I'm scared to death. But he isn't going to get the satisfaction of knowing that. Not over my dead body."

Those last words cut into me like a knife. _Her dead body_. That expression was usually used light-heartedly, a playful insistence that something would never happen. But the way that Leah had said it— she meant it. If he were to come and kill her, she still would not let him have the pleasure of knowing she was scared. That scared me.

"Leah, that would be... unwise." I tucked my hair behind my ears, and looked her right in the emerald eyes. "You may not want him to know that you are afraid, but you can't go unprotected, now that he has a general idea where you frequent."

"He's_ not_ going to win."

"It isn't about winning. If I have to worry about your safety, how am I supposed to concentrate enough to catch him? I've been putting my whole self into your case; I really can't have you playing brave right now." She sat up straight, her eyebrows pushed together in discontent. I'd over-stepped my boundaries.

"You don't need to _worry_ about me, Dr. Reid. I'm a big girl," she told me sternly, her jaw squared. "I don't need a _babysitter_."

"I know you don't," I replied carefully, looking at her with a gentle expression, "I just don't want to see you hurt again. I just don't think I could live with myself if I stood by and did nothing while he came back and hurt you." It was the truth. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I'd have broken down. I was already screwing things up because she was on my mind half the time. But I wasn't falling in love with her.

She sighed, slouching her shoulders a little. "Why do you care so much?"

The question caught me off-guard. Why _did _I care so much? Why was her case eating at me like termites ate wood? Why was I always wondering where she was; how she was doing; if she was okay? It didn't make sense to me that I should care this much. But I did.

"I... don't know," I admitted sheepishly, attempting a small smile at her. "I just..." I paused. "Do."

* * *

_Leah's Point of View_

I shouldn't have taken that answer at face value. I could see in his eyes that there was more to it than just '_I just do,_' but I didn't press him. I was too scared for my own life to care too much about whether he was holding something back. He had the right to, anyway. Who was I to stop him?

"I see," I grumbled moodily, crossing my arms over my chest. He stared at me as though in wonder, his eyes round as saucers. "What are we going to do?"

"You should have protection, of some kind," he warned me. I frowned. He was looking at me as though I was a piece of breakable fine china. I wasn't sure why I liked him looking at me like that. If it had been anyone else standing there, I would have run my mouth off at them more, complaining about it. And yet I let him do it. I let him look at me like something small and fragile. It felt almost freeing to know that he wanted to protect me. And maybe I would let him. Maybe he could be my Knight in Shining Armour.

"Then I'll get myself a gun," I heard my voice say shakily. A gun? What use would I have for one of those? I'd never_ shoot_ somebody. I didn't even know how to.

Dr. Reid cocked an eyebrow. "Do you know how to use one?" Damn. He'd thought of that, too.

"No. But I can learn." Why did I have to use that defensive tone all the time? What was I defending myself against, exactly?

"I could teach you."

I stared at him, my heart racing. Spencer Reid and I, in the close confides of a shooting range booth, with him showing me how to shoot? Why was this giving me romantic thoughts? He was just being a good FBI Agent. He was just being nice. He wasn't thinking how he'd have to hold my arm straight for me, or put his arms around me to help me aim... was he?

I smiled slightly. "I'd like that." I would? Where was this coming from? He smiled.

"Until then, I suggest you get a hotel room."

I rolled my eyes. "_Fine._" Had he been anyone else, I would not have agreed so quickly. But he wasn't just anyone. He was Spencer Reid. ...Spencer. I liked the sound of that.


	10. Misinterpretation

_Leah's Point of View_

My hotel room wasn't all that impressive, but it was in the upper parts of my price range, and it was a relatively nice place; bedroom, small seating area, washroom. And it was clean. That's all I really cared about. The fact that the wallpaper in the bathroom was hideous had little standing.

I'd washed a bunch of my clothes and thrown them haphazardly into my old duffel bag to pack, along with my toothbrush and other necessities. I hadn't brought anything sentimental with me, even though I didn't know if I'd be in this room for a few nights or a few _weeks_— but none of my stuff at home felt like it was mine anymore, so it didn't feel like it mattered. My pictures, my old teddy bear, my books... they all felt like they belonged to another life, another Leah. I had changed. I was starting over.

The police had made sure to post a guard just down the hall of my room, when Spencer updated them in the change in my situation—the fact that _he_ might be stalking me. I wasn't so sure it was stalking, but Spencer was avid that we inform the police of the fact that he was... but really, he could just live or work near me. Perhaps that was how he found me in the first place. The street where I had seen him wasn't all that far from where I was abducted from; it could have just been coincidence. He may not have been looking for me at all. (These were the excuses I gave myself to calm my nerves.)

The knock at the door of my hotel room startled me out of my reverie. Because of the guard, no one other than law enforcement and hotel staff were supposed to approach my room— I assumed that, therefore, it was either room service or Dr. Reid coming to check on me. It was the latter.

"Spencer!" I said almost gleefully when I opened the door to reveal him. "I thought you went home already." Not that I minded, of course. My guardian angel was always welcome into my home (or, rather, hotel room). He grinned at me sheepishly.

"I just thought I'd check up on you and see how you were settling in before I called it a night," he explained, an adorable blush creeping into his thin cheeks. I raised an eyebrow and glanced at the analogue clock that was sitting on the little built-in shelf beside the door. It was only seven thirty.

"Calling it a night at seven thirty?" I asked, eyebrow still raised, "Geez, you get more beauty sleep than I do!" He flushed again.

"I-I meant from... work." The way he stumbled over his words was undeniably charming, in a cute, geeky way. "I don't go to bed at seven thirty," he assured me, and I grinned.

"Oh. Well then. ...Would you like to come in for coffee then?"

Spencer's posture suddenly became a little straighter, and his body much more rigid. He looked disgruntled, as though he didn't know how to respond to the simple question, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again, frowning slightly.

"I don't think that that would be... appropriate," he concluded finally, his voice a little higher pitched than normal, like when he first found me on the beach. His whole body looked tense. You'd have thought I was _propositioning _him, by the way he reacted. I frowned back at him, crossing my arms.

"Okay." I decided to change the subject, even though it felt sort of indiscreet talking in the doorway like this. "What time will we be heading to the shooting range?"

His posture relaxed a little. "Pretty early, as long as that's alright with you. Their normal hours are ten to six, but I know a guy who works there and he said he would be there after seven, and that he'd set up a booth for us any time after that because of the circumstances."

"That was nice of him," I said honestly. He gave me a look like he didn't know whether I was being sarcastic or not.

"I know. I'm planning on putting in a good word with his boss for him. What time do you want me to be here?"

"Seven should be fine." I made a mental note to get up earlier than that so I could take a shower and wash my hair. The summer's humidity was really doing a doosey on my poor hair; it felt stringy already, and I'd just washed it this morning. "But you might have to knock really loud to wake me up," I joked.

Spencer gave me a slightly worried look before nodding. "See you tomorrow then," he said, then turned as began strolling down the hallway.

"Goodnight to you to," I muttered exasperatedly as I closed the door. Spencer Reid was a strange character, alright. Apparently, I made him uncomfortable, and he lacked a simple social skill— being able to tell when what someone was asking you as sexual in nature or not. My offer for coffee had simply been that: an offer to come in and talk over a cup of coffee. There was a coffee maker on the little built-in beside the door, complete with cups and packages of ground beans.

I smiled slightly. I could totally use this to my advantage— make him completely uncomfortable at the range by using every innuendo in the book while trapped in close quarters with him. I could just see it now; his face turning beet red as I made some dubiously veiled comment about his shoe size and winking at him. Those kinds of thoughts were welcome, even though they were highly inappropriate, because it was like a little bit of the old Leah shining through my new skin.

The old me wouldn't have paused to think about what I was doing if I _were _to proposition Dr. Reid— the attraction was definitely there, and that's all I would have cared about before. Now, things were different. If I was going to look at someone in a romantic light, I really had to know that I trusted them, and felt safe with them— though, perhaps Spencer was my Knight in Shining Armour. We'd just have to wait and see.

* * *

_Spencer's Point of View_

I'd borrowed Morgan's car to drive Leah and I to the shooting range. I hadn't told him what I was using it for, though, and he didn't ask. The look he gave me as I walked out of the BAU with his car keys after the end of our shift suggested that he thought I had a date. It was as if he didn't know me at all; he knows I act like an idiot around women!

She was awake and almost ready to leave when I knocked on her hotel room door at exactly five to seven, her hair wet and up in one of those ridiculous towel things women put their hair in after they shower. She pulled it out and gave it a quick brush as I waited in the doorway, then grabbed her purse and followed me out, barely speaking a word. Though our morning was mostly nonverbal up until we pulled into the shooting range's parking lot, I didn't sense any hostility towards me. I thought maybe she just wasn't a morning person.

As I carefully (_very_ carefully) pulled Morgan's car into a parking spot, she laughed lightly. "You don't drive much, do you?" I put the car in neutral and looked over at her, intrigued.

"Not really. How did you know?" She shrugged.

"You're treating this car like it's made of glass. You didn't go a mile over the limit on a road with no cars on it, and you pulled into a space in the center of the lot when there are plenty closer to the doors." She pointed to the multitude of available spots in front of us. "This isn't your car."

"It's a friend of mine's," I admitted, looking at her in a new light. She had the makings of a good profiler in her, and she didn't even notice. For a second, I stopped seeing her as a victim, and more of a beautiful, intelligent woman— and blushed bright red. I had called her beautiful again, even if it was in my head.

_Spencer, you can't think of her that way_, I scolded myself, _she's a victim. Even if she did like you that way, it would be like Lila and Austin; transference. You have to learn how to meet woman who haven't been victimised!_

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Her voice startled me from my thoughts, and I realised I'd been staring at her forehead for almost a minute.

"Sorry," I said, my gave falling on the car key as I pulled it out of the ignition. "I was just thinking."

"About what?" she asked as we opened our doors. I made sure both doors were locked before answering.

"Just... stuff. I noticed you had a scar above your eye. Where'd you get it?" I surprised myself by asking her such a personal question. She frowned slightly, but didn't seem to mind about the intrusion.

"When I was three, I fell down the stairs to the basement and hit my head off a coffee table that was at the bottom. I don't remember it, though. My mom just always tells that story when she introduces me to people." She rolled her eyes. "Another reason not to visit."

I didn't exactly know how to respond to that, so I Just put my hands in my pockets, nodded, and walked towards the doors with her.

"Dan, this is Leah Banks," I introduced an old acquaintance of mine, Daniel Cooper, to Leah when we met him in the lobby of the building. "Leah, this is Dan Cooper, the friend of mine I was telling you about." Dan extended his hand and Leah shook it.

"Nice to meet you," she said, smiling slightly before pulling her hand away and stuffing it into the pocket of her jeans. I had a feeling she didn't like the way Dan was eying her figure appreciatively. I wasn't at all comfortable with that, either, so I cleared my throat to get this attention. Dan looked at me, confused for a half second before he got the hint. He grabbed us a couple of pairs of earmuffs and grinned, pointing him thumb over her shoulder.

"I set up a booth for y'all in the back." He led us through a door and into a long hallway with dividers along the one side and various guns hanging up on little rubber hooks on the other, then motioned towards the one farthest from the door. "I already put up a target for ya. Guns are along the wall, ammo in the marked drawers." He paused, then took a step closer to the gun-covered wall and took one down. "You'll prob'ly want to star her on something small, like this." He held up a .22 calibre handgun for my inspection. "Kickback is a doosey for first-timers."

"Thanks," I mumbled, looking over the unloaded gun quickly. It was one of the smallest they had, and was rather light without a magazine in it. Dan left us alone after giving me the earmuffs, and Leah looked at me expectantly. I handed her the weapon, and I was her hands shake a little— I remembered that I'd been very nervous the first time I'd shot a gun, and gave her a friendly little pat on the shoulder to encourage her before I scanned the drawers' labels until I found .22 and filled a magazine for her.

"It can't be that difficult, can it?" she asked me quietly as I clicked the magazine into place for her and led her to the booth Dan had specified. "I mean, you just point and pull the trigger, right?" I chuckled.

"Yeah, just point and pull the trigger," I said half sarcastically as I put my earmuffs over my ears and then put hers over hers. I took a step back and motioned to the target, a vaguely human-looking black shape on a piece of white paper twenty feet down the shooting isle.

She raised the gun slowly, closing one eye and biting her tongue as she tried to level the barrel of the gun to the center of the target. She looked impossibly cute when she was concentrating.

The kickback surprised _me_ a little, and I was expecting it. Leah, who'd never held a gun before was shocked as the handgun practically leapt backwards out of her small hands and caused her to stumble backward, almost right out of the booth. She gave me a fearful, half-angry expression and took off her earmuffs. I did the same.

"That's harder than I thought it'd be," she admitted, handing me the gun. I took it from her and she immediately began to shake her hands, and I could tell they were probably stinging. "You said all I had to do was point and shoot!"

"Did I?" I asked innocently, knowing full well that by letting her learn about how forceful guns could recoil on her own would probably make her a much better shot in the end. "Whoops. I guess I forgot to mention that it's not as easy as it looks on TV."

"No, _really_?" Leah said in a sarcastic, exasperated voice. "You could have at least _warned_ me."

"Wouldn't be nearly as fun if I did that," I told her honestly, suppressing a chuckle. "Here, why don't I show you how to avoid that?"

Using the same techniques my instructor used on me when I was training for the FBI, I showed her how to properly aim and to bend her elbows and pull up as she shot to lessen the recoil's strength. Of course, I couldn't help but stand a little closer to her than my instructor did to me and hold her arms for more practice shots than was necessary— she was getting it, slowly but surely— but that was just instinctual. And she didn't seem to mind, anyway, giving me these wonderful, understanding smiles between shots. I, for one, didn't feel uncomfortable at all being that close together. Until, that is, the first time I didn't guide her arms with her.

I took my hands off her wrists and instead rested them on her shoulders, offering for the first time since the initial one for her to do one solo. She prepped the way I had showed her, lowering her sights but aiming a little high in order to get a center shot, but when she pulled the trigger, her reaction time wasn't fast enough and she didn't bend it upwards in time. She stumbled backwards, and I braced myself for her impact, catching her around the waist so she didn't fall.

My body's reaction to her being pressed against me in this way was exactly what it should have been, according to human nature. Not that that made it any less embarrassing, or my sudden release of her and hurried backward steps to hide the object of my discomfort any less panicked.

"Oof," I heard Leah grunt as she grabbed the wall to avoid falling over. She turned to me, her lips pursed in a sour expression. "What was that for?"

"Sorry," I squeaked, then cleared my throat. "It was a reflex."

"_Sure_ it was," she grumbled almost sarcastically, turning back to face the target. I couldn't tell, but I thought maybe by the way her voice sounded, that she was grinning.


	11. Watcher

_A/N – This chapter's a little different, because it's not told from anyone's point of view— sorry for the weird change in perspective, but it had to be done in order to do the 'flash-back' seen that appears in almost every episode of Criminal Minds._

The full moon cast an angelic glow on the deck of the small boat rocking gently with the waves. A middle-aged man and younger woman slowly made love to that rhythm, the only sounds in the night the water crashing up against the side of the boat and their happy sighs. Neither noticed a pair of ice-blue eyes peeking at them through a cracked door, leading to the hold.

The boy, barely six years old, smiled slightly. He could only see his parent's silhouettes against the blackness of the sky and the brightness of the stars, but he could hear their happy noises. He was old enough to understand that this was a private moment, but too young to know what was really going on, either than they were _making happy_ to each other.

It was very late at night, and as the young boy listened to the waves crashing against the wood, he slowly drifted off to sleep in the position he had been spying in; one hand holding the door ajar, laying up the stairs that led down into the boat.

He was awoken only a few minutes after he had fallen asleep by angry voices, and he once again peeked through the crack, this time in fear more than curiosity.

"Gerald, I don't know what you're talking about," he heard his mother hiss denyingly, sitting against the railing and lighting up a cigarette from her purse. She cradled a glass of wine in the other hand, nearly dropping it while attempting to use her lighter.

"Oh? So you didn't sleep with Vincent while I was at the conference?" Gerald asked accusingly, buttoning up one of his many white-collar shirts. "Tell me, Nicole. Tell me the truth."

Nicole tossed back her head, and her dark-brown hair fell off her shoulders as she laughed lightly, a trail of smoke ascending into the night sky. "The truth? Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"Why would you cheat on me? Do you have any idea what you're ruining? What about our son!"

The young watcher's eyes were wide as he sunk back into the shadow of the stairway a little more, scared that he would be discovered, but more scared of missing a word that was being said. He'd caught enough of the conversation to know that his mother had been _making happy_ to someone who wasn't his daddy, and that daddy was mad.

"Well I wasn't really thinking about him while I was doing it, now was I? I was thinking about how _amazing_ Vince—" She was cut off as Gerald grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her against the rail. In her surprise, she dropped her glass. It shattered on the deck, splashing its red contents across the wood.

"Don't. You. Dare," Gerald growled, his voice low and dangerous, like his son had never heard before. "How could you?"

"It's not like you ever would have known, if Vince hadn't told everyone in your office to get back at me for dumping him. You're never around. You're never here when I need you, when your son needs you—"

"You're going to put this on me? You think that it's _my_ fault?" His voice was slowly getting louder and louder, gaining volume like thunder as it came closer and closer. "You're blaming _me_? Who puts food on the table? Who pays for your coke habit? You ungrateful bitch!"

Both Nicole and her son flinched as Gerald spat further obscenities at his wife. She turned her head away from him, and the boy sunk back into the shadows further to distance himself from the ugly words. Tears were streaming down his cheeks by the time his father ran out of steam, panting and spitting nonsense curses at a woman who was barely listening anymore.

He stopped the stream of words and squared his jaw, eyes blazing. Nicole turned back to look at him, tears in her eyes. "I want a divorce." Her words were quiet, but filled with hate. "I'm leaving you. I'm taking our son with me, and every penny you're worth."

That was the last straw. Gerald snapped, throwing his wife down on the deck and stumbling backward until his back hit the built in table they'd been eating at hours earlier. His hands searched blindly in the darkness, finally finding a steak knife and holding it in front of him defensively. "You can't do that," he growled, "I can't— you can't— I won't let— no—"

Nicole stood up her eyes level with her husband, her eyes no longer filled with tears. She laughed and began to mock him, not realizing that he had gone over the edge, and she was pushing him further. "Aw, wittle Gerald can't form completely sentences? Come on, you can do it! You can d— _ughh_." She gasped and looked down at the knife embedded in her stomach.

The boy couldn't tear his eyes away from the gruesome seen as he watched his father pull out the knife. He couldn't move as he saw his mother fall to her knees, gasping and holding the stab wound with both hands, stunned. He didn't say a word has his father swooped down on her, raising the knife again and plunging it back into her flesh. He didn't close his eyes as it happened again and again, so many times that he lost count.

Only when Gerald dropped the knife, the job finished, did his son make a noise. A scared cry escaped his throat, sounding more like a wounded, choking animal than a little boy. His father raised his head, his gaze falling on the door.

"John?" he asked, startled. The scared boy retreated further down the stairs, and the door fell closed the half inch it had been open. He began to sob, hugging his knees and sitting on the sixth step down.

The door opened, lighting the pitch darkness of the staircase with the moonlight. "Johnny, shh, it's okay. Everything's going to be okay now." Gerald put a hand on his son's shoulder, and the boy jumped.

"Mommy," John whimpered, looking out the door. He couldn't see the body from this angle, but the pool of red blood had spread across the deck and was reflecting the stars. "You hurt mommy."

"Mommy's been very bad. She wanted to take you away from me," Gerald explained to the young boy, "Women do that. You think you can trust them, but they always desert you." His voice was bitter and hardened from too many rejections, and he sounded older than he really was. "They only want you for money and their own happiness. Mommy's been very bad. She deserved it." He sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than the child in front of him, but John still looked up into Gerald's brown eyes with wonder and acceptance. He was too young to know that his father could lie to him. Daddy always told the truth.

"But mommy—"

"Mommy's gone now, don't worry. She can't hurt us anymore."

The man and his son ascended to the deck as it started to rain outside. They rolled Nicole's limp body to the side of the boat, the lifted her over the rail. John watched as his mother hit the water, and the last thing he saw of her was her lifeless green eyes.

* * *

"_You taught me how to defend myself, the least I can do is buy you breakfast,_" Leah argued, poking Spencer in the chest lightly. He rolled his eyes, but relented.

"_Okay. Fine. Know anywhere good?_"

"_Yeah, this little place not far from here—_"

As the pair loaded into Agent Morgan's car, neither noticed a pair of ice-blue eyes watching them from a thick patch of nearby shrubbery. Neither heard his voice, either, as he said, "You aren't going to hurt him, too, bitch," and they drove in the direction of a little dinner that Leah knew.


	12. Never Met Anyone

_Spencer's Point of View_

"I had fun this morning, Dr. Reid," Leah admitted sheepishly, sipping her coffee delicately. "You surprised me a lot."

"Oh?" I liked the way she said that. "How so?"

The diner that she had picked out was quiet. The breakfast rush had already ended, and there was just one other patron eating pancakes at the counter. Leah seemed to think it over, taking a piece of toast off her plate and taking a large bite of it.

"Hmm," she said while chewing, looking almost puzzled, "I don't know. I just expected you to be different."

"Different?"

"Yeah. More tough-guy, I guess. I don't know. You're really nice," she explained, tilting her head to one side and twirling her toast between her fingers absentmindedly. "Can I call you Spencer? Would that be weird?"

"No, that's okay. You can, uh, you can call me Spencer. It's not weird," I lied, feeling as though my insides had turned to mush. I was already calling her Leah, why should it be weird for her to call me Spencer? _Because no one calls you Spencer,_ I thought, frowning slightly. _Even the team call you Reid off-duty, minus JJ._

"Are you alright?" asked Leah, her expression changing from one of ease to one of worry. "You look kind of... ill."

"Oh, no, I'm fine," I said, quickly plastering on a smile, "I just uh... zoned out there, for a moment."

"That happens a lot, huh?" She popped the last bite of her toast into her mouth and pushed her plate to one side. "Seems every time I talk to you, you get really distracted. Am I really that boring?" She sounded a little sarcastic.

"You're not... you're not boring. I'm just..." I paused. What was I?

"You're just complicated? Thoughtful?"

"Yeah. Something like that." The waitress noticed that our plates were empty and made her way over to our table, holding the cheque.

"Will that be everything?" she asked politely. I noticed she smiled at me a lot, and bent over just a little too far when she put the cheque down on the table, giving me an uncomfortable view down the front of her blouse.

"Um, yes."

"Then I'll be right back." She sauntered off, moving very fluidly. I turned away to look at Leah when I heard her laugh quietly.

"What's so funny?" I asked, smiling.

"What, you didn't see that? She was all over you! A tip monger, I imagine. She thinks you're paying." She snatched the cheque and began to riffle through her purse. I frowned. It wasn't polite to let the lady pay. That wasn't the way a date worked.

"No, I'll pay." I took the cheque from her and took my own wallet from my breast pocket to count out the right amount of bills. She made a face.

"I said _I'd_ take _you_ to breakfast. That means I pay." She put on a pout and crossed her arms childishly. I found it rather cute the way she was defending herself.

"It's not that much. I don't mind." It really was just change, including the tip. "It'd be rude for me to let the lady pay." I cursed myself. Did that sound sexist? But she just laughed and uncrossed her arms.

"Ah, and they say that chivalry has died! You know, I've never met anyone quite like you," she laughed, her eyes sparkling. Well, at least I'd done something right.

"I've never met anyone like you either," I replied truthfully, putting away my wallet and placing the cheque at the edge of the table for the waitress to pick up.

"You meet people like me every day, don't you?" She put her purse over her shoulder and got up from her chair, tucking it under the table. I got up after her, somewhat speechless. "I mean, isn't that your job?"

"I— what do you mean?"

"Victims. You meet them all the time. I'm not special. I'm just... damaged."

"I wasn't thinking about that, actually." I put my hand in the small of her back and lead her out of the diner. She'd wrapped her arms around herself, probably because she felt insecure. She looked up at me, wide-eyed.

"What wasn't what you meant?"

"No. I was thinking about how you laugh at my jokes, and you smile when you're nervous, and you like your coffee with seven sugars like I do. You're a beautiful person, inside and out, and I just... I've never met anyone even remotely like you." I opened Morgan's passenger door for her, and she meekly climbed inside. I ran around the vehicle and got in the driver's side. I was halfway back to her hotel before she spoke again.

"Thank you," she said. I looked at her, but she was staring straight ahead, expression neutral.

"For what? I was just stating a fact." She turned to me then, as I stopped at a red light, and she smiled. She had a beautiful smile.

"For being complicated, then." I laughed. I wished it was always that easy.


	13. Internal War

_Morgan's Point of View_

When Reid walked into the Bullpen an hour later than he usually would with a goofy look on his face, I knew something was up. He tossed my car keys to me and settled into his desk, his eyes sparkling. I grinned sheepishly.

"_Somebody_ got lucky last night," I goaded, winking at him noticeably. He looked up from where he was organising the things on his desk to stare at me. He shook his head and looked down again.

"I told you, it wasn't a date," he argued, straightening papers in front of him and refusing to look me in the eye. "You've got the wrong idea."

"The wrong idea, huh? Then what's got you looking so happy?" I prodded. He took a minute before he answered; putting his pens in a straight line next to his straightened papers and making sure they were exactly lined up.

"If you _must_ know, I took a friend to the shooting range this morning to practice self-defence, and the session went better than I expected," he finally told me, looking up from his stuff and staring me down. "That's all." I laughed and leaned back in my chair comfortably, putting my hands behind my head and crossing my ankles. I wasn't going to take that answer at face value.

"_You_ were teaching someone how to shoot? I thought you _barely _passed your practical exam last year." He knew I was just teasing him, but he flushed pink anyway, keeping his mouth shut. "So, is this friend of yours any good?"

"Good?" he asked, confused.

"At the range," I clarified, taking my hands from behind my head and folding them in my lap. "Did she surpass the skills of her teacher, or did she shoot the target in the groin too?"

"She did fine," he grumbled. "Better than I expected."

"Ah, and you're upset because she doesn't need more practice and you don't get to show her how to hold her arms anymore," I concluded. "Too bad, man. How hot was she?"

"Don't talk about her like that. She's just a friend of mine." He started fiddling with his watch, pulling it over the sleeve of his shirt and loosening the clasp.

I had to admit, whoever this girl was, she had the skinny man wrapped around her finger. I was just surprised that Reid hadn't come to me for advice before going after her, if teaching her how to shoot could be considered that. But, either way, he was being very defensive over her, that was for sure.

"I see, I see. Does this mystery girl have a name?"

"Mystery girl? What mystery girl?" Emily seemed to come out of nowhere, suddenly standing between mine and Reid's desks with her bag slung over one shoulder. I grinned at Reid's sudden look of panic.

"Reid's mystery girl who he did not borrow my car to take on a date," I told her, watching Reid squirm. Emily laughed and looked at Reid.

"You've got a girlfriend? That's great, Reid! Do we know her?"

"No," he responded quickly, his eyes looking back and forth between Emily and me. "No, you don't know her."

"Ah, but you admit she's your girlfriend, then?" I asked, grinning at Emily and winking. She was smiling still, happy to be in on the making-fun-of-Reid action. It was just in good fun, though. We both knew when it was time to stop joking around, if he got really frustrated. We weren't bullies. Well, not really.

"No! I mean, I didn't say— stop twisting my words around!" Reid squeaked, looking almost like he was going to jump up from his chair and confront us. I gave Emily a look and she shrugged, dropped her bag next to her chair and settled in to her own desk.

"Sorry, little man. Didn't mean to bother you." Emily giggled, and Reid rolled his eyes.

"You know, you guys can be real jerks sometimes," he confided in us, glaring at me defiantly. "I mean, _really._ She's isn't even my girlfriend and you're both giving me the fifth degree!" I just laughed, because before I could retort, JJ sauntered past and was holding a manila folder with the FBI emblem on the front.

"We've got a case. Conference room in two minutes," she announced, and whatever I was going to say to Reid died on my tongue as I collected my things and the three of us began to prepare for the briefing.

* * *

_Spencer's Point of View_

It was later that I found myself at home, alone, and surprisingly bored. I had gotten myself thrown off the case and stuck in a cab headed back in the direction of Quantico— luckily the case was just a few cities over. I had punched a suspect in the face twenty-four hours in; and just because he looked slightly similar to the drawing of Leah's attacker. I knew it wasn't the guy. It wasn't the UNSUB for either case. But I had flipped out in a manner that was so unlike myself that it surprised me... and now I was home, and I was bored.

I thought momentarily about calling Leah— Lord knew I wanted to see her again— but what would I say? That I just wanted to be close to her? Would I ask her out to dinner, or to a movie? Morgan was right; this sounded a whole lot like dating, and I wasn't sure I liked that. My feelings for Leah were mixed up and tangled. But I wasn't in love with her. Was I?

My phone was in my hand and Leah's number punched in when I looked down at it. I hadn't hit call, but I must have subconsciously picked it up. What did this all mean? I was obviously attracted to her, but...

_But what, Spencer?_ That little voice inside me asked. _Why not go for it?_

"She's vulnerable," I vocalised, not caring that I was talking to myself. "It wouldn't be right for me to take advantage of her like that. Transference. She's a victim."

_She's healing. And she can say no if she wants to. _She_ was the one who asked you to breakfast, remember?_

"But that was just friendly thanks for going to the range with her..."

_What if it wasn't?_

I stared at the phone in my hand, just waiting for me to press 'call.' What if I were to ask her out? Would she be disgusted with me? Or did she feel the same way?

But I didn't have to make a decision, because as I sunk onto my couch and stared intently at the phone, it began to ring in my hand. I sighed with relief at the name on the caller display and put it to my ear.

"Hey," I greeted, smiling easily. "What's going on?"


	14. Leaving So Soon?

_Leah's Point of View_

I hadn't expected him to be home when I called the home number he had given me. I expected an answering machine and a "_Leave a message after the beep_," message. It was work hours— about two o'clock, if my watch was working; and he had said he had a case, so I had prepared a short explanation to leave on his voicemail. Talking to a phone was easy. Talking to a person was much messier.

"Oh," I said, mind racing to find words to say to him, "Hi, Spencer. I didn't realise you'd be home. I was just going to leave a message." I paused, mulling over the exact reasons why he might be home. "Did you finish that case already?"

I felt a jealous pang in my stomach. How come the FBI could solve that case in a matter of _hours_, and mine probably hadn't been looked at in _weeks_? Spencer chuckled on the other end of the phone.

"_No, we haven't solved it yet. I'm just home to uh..._" I swear I could hear the gears turning to make up an excuse. It had just been that kind of trailing off. "_Get some rest._" It was a bad excuse, but I wasn't going to call him on it. I didn't need to know why he was off the case. I had my own problems to think about.

"I see. Well, I just called to let you know I won't be in the city for much longer. I'm going to be in Denver for a while." I heard his sharp intake of breath and wondered briefly how much he'd miss me.

"_Denver? As in Denver, Colorado?_" he asked almost shakily. I sighed into the receiver.

"Yeah. I guess my sister heard through the grapevine about my attack, and she told my parents, who are now insisting I come home for a month or two to recover. It's only been a month, after all, and they '_want me to heal in a place I feel safe_.'" I rolled my eyes, leaning against my kitchen counter and pinching the bridge of my nose. "They wouldn't let me say no."

Spencer was quiet for almost a whole minute before he answered. I almost asked him if he was still there, but I could hear him quietly breathing and knew he was just thinking, spacing out the way he always did.

"_Denver is approximately one thousand, eight-hundred and thirty miles from Quantico_," he said at last, and my brow furrowed.

"I guess that's about right. But I don't see how that has _anything_ to do with—"

"_So I won't be able to give you any more shooting lessons, or have breakfast with you again, then._"

My breath caught. Did he just basically say he wanted to see me again? My heart was racing, and I was very angry at my parents for deciding I had to come home just then. I was just starting to get used to how things were now, the new me and how I was growing as a person. I was just getting used to the idea that I could trust Spencer, and now my parents wanted to take all that away so that I could spend time with them four States over. It just wasn't _fair_.

"I'm sorry, Spencer," I mumbled, sighing again. "Maybe when I get back we could do something, but right now, my parents are being pretty insistent..." That was putting it mildly. "...and I really can't get out of it."

"_Well, I hope you have a good time, then,_" he said, but I didn't hear any of the sarcasm I had been expecting. "_And err... feel... better?_"

I laughed at that. He was the only thing that ever made me feel better, as of late. But I casually replied, "I hope so too," instead of vocalising it. Why should I make him worry, anyway? I'd be okay with my family in Colorado for a month. It was only a month, after all.

We said our goodbyes and I hung up, feeling only slightly better after hearing his voice. A whole month away from him; I was more nervous now than when my mother had called earlier and thrown her hysterics in my face. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose once more for a moment before heading into my bedroom to finish packing.

* * *

_Spencer's Point of View_

It wasn't ten minutes later that I was standing at her doorstep, feeling much like an idiot. Though I had come there with words in mind to say, they died on my tongue as I raised my hand to knock. Why had I come? I couldn't remember.

I took a deep breath and knocked anyway, hoping that my spontaneity wasn't unwarranted. She answered the door a moment later, and her sudden outbreak in a huge smile told me that it wasn't. She opened the door to let me in, all the while showing off her teeth. Her smile was wonderful. It was a good look on her.

"Spencer! I didn't expect you to come over," she said, though she looked happy enough that I had. I smiled in return, making sure the door was closed behind me as I took a step inside.

"I thought I'd come over and say good-bye properly, at least. When are you leaving?"

Her smile faded a little. "I've just finished packing, actually." My heart sank.

"So soon?" I asked, a little flabbergasted. This was all happening so fast. I barely had time to think about her not being around me, and she was practically already gone?

"Yeah, my mom and dad are really worried, and they've already pre-bought train tickets." She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her pull-over, shrugging. "I was about to call a cab."

"Oh, you don't have to do that. I'll give you a lift to the... uh... train station." My voice squeaked a little on the last words, but I managed— at least, I hoped I managed— to look nonchalant about it. She laughed, taking a hand on of her pocket and putting it on my arm. My skin seemed to burn at her touch, even though my dress shirt.

"You don't have a car."

I smirked. "Actually I do. I just... don't drive often." _Never,_ was more like it. And Derek's car was much prettier than mine, at any rate. But I had gotten out the keys to the car that sat in my parking spot in the garage bellow my building, just so I could see her.

"Then why...?" She paused, obviously deciding it was better not to ask. "You know what, thank you. I'll just uh... get my stuff and we can go."

She disappeared for a moment and returned with a hot pink and lime green striped suitcase and a black duffel bag. I took the suitcase from her raising an eyebrow at the colour.

"I haven't used it for a while, okay?" Was her explanation for the hideous thing, which I took in stride with a light laugh. She smiled back at me and we talked a while as we walked to my car.

"This is yours?" she asked sceptically, eying the '86 Chevy.

"I haven't used it in a while, okay?" I parroted, mimicking her just enough for her to laugh. She shook her head and put the duffel bag in the truck after I popped it. I slid the suitcase in beside it and snapped it closed with a sigh. "It was my mother's, if you must know. I never had the heart to get rid of the old thing."

"Get rid of it? Why would you want to if it still runs?" She paused as I opened the passenger door for her. "It _does_ still run, right?" she joked as she climbed in and buckled up.

"Of course it runs!" I replied indignantly. We laughed, again. I think I love her laugh.


End file.
